♦ 



THE 



v«TICAL PRESENCE. 



A VINDICATION OF THE 



REFORMED OR CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 



OF THE 

HOLY EUCHARIST. 

BY THE^ 

REV. JOHN W. NEVIN, D. D, 

PROF. OF THEOL. IN THE SEMINARY OF THE GER. REF. CHURCH. 




| THE LIBRARY 
(Of CONGRESS 

[WASHINGTON 



PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIP PIN COT T & Co. 
1846. 




Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

J. B. LTPPINCOTT & Co., 

the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for 
eastern district of Pennsylvania. 




PHIL ADELP HIA: 
KING AND BAIRD, PRINTERS, 

No. 9 George Street. 



PREFACE. 



The following work has grown directly out of some contro- 
versy which has had place, during the past year, in the German 
Reformed Church, on the subject to which it relates. This stands 
related to it, however, only as an external occasion, and has not 
been permitted to come into view, in any way, in the work itself. 

It is not felt that any apology is needed for the publication. — 
This is found in the importance of its subject, which must be left 
of course to speak for itself. 

As the Eucharist forms the very heart of the whole Christian 
worship, so it is clear that the entire question of the Church, which 
all are compelled to acknowledge, the great life-problem of the age, 
centres ultimately in the sacramental question as its inmost heart 
and core. Our view of the Lord's Supper must ever condition 
and rule in the end our view of Christ's person and the concep- 
tion we form of the Church. It must influence at the same time, 
very materially, our whole system of theology, as well as all our 
ideas of ecclesiastical history. 

Is it true that the modern Protestant Church in this country has, 
in large part at least, fallen away from the sacramental doctrine of 
the sixteenth century ? All must at least allow, that there is some 
room for asking the question. If so, it is equally plain that it is 
a question which is entitled to a serious answer. For in the na- 
ture of the case, such a falling away, if it exist at all, must be 
connected with a still more general removal from the original plat- 
form of the Church. The eucharistic doctrine of the sixteenth 



4 



PREFACE. 



century was interwoven w r ith the whole church system of the 
time ; to give it up, then, must involve in the end a renunciation 
in principle, if not in profession, of this system itself in its radi- 
cal, distinctive constitution. If it can be shown that no material 
change has taken place, it is due to an interest of such high con- 
sequence that this should be satisfactorily done. Or if the change 
should be allowed, and still vindicated as a legitimate advance on 
the original Protestant faith, let this ground be openly and con- 
sciously taken. Let us know, at least, where we are and what 
we actually do believe, in the case of this central question, as 
compared with the theological stand-point of our Catechisms and 
Confessions of Faith. 

The relations of this inquiry to the question concerning the 
true idea of the Church, will easily be felt by every well-informed 
and reflecting mind. If the fact of the incarnation be indeed the 
principle and source of a new supernatural order of life for hu- 
manity itself, the Church, of course, is no abstraction. It must 
be a true, living, divine-human constitution in the world ; strictly 
organic in its nature — not a device or contrivance ingeniously fit- 
ted to serve certain purposes beyond itself — but the necessary, 
essential form of Christianity, in whose presence only it is possi- 
ble to conceive intelligently of piety in its individual manifesta- 
tions. The life of the single Christian can be real and healthful 
only as it is born from the general life of the Church, and car- 
ried by it onward to the end. We are Christians singly, by par- 
taking (having part) in the general life-revelation, which is already 
at hand organically in the Church, the living and life-giving body 
of Jesus Christ. As thus real and organic, moreover, Christianity 
must be historical. No higher wrong can be done to it than to 
call in question its true historical character ; for this is, in fact, 
to turn it into a phantasm, and to overthrow the solid fact-basis on 
which its foundations eternally rest. It must be historical, too, 
under the form of the Church; for the realness of Christianity 
demands indispensably the presence of the general life of Christ, 
flowing with unbroken continuity from the beginning as the me- 
dium of all particular union with him from age to age. Then, 
again, the historical Church must be visible, or in other words, 



PREFACE. 



5 



not merely ideal, but actual. The actual may indeed fall short 
immeasurably of the idea it represents ; the visible Church may 
be imperfect, corrupt, false to its own conception and calling; but 
still an actual, continuously visible Church there must always be 
in the world, if Christianity is to have either truth or reality in 
the form of a new creation. A purely invisible Church has been 
well denominated a contradictio in adjecto ; since the very idea 
of a Church implies the manifestation of the religious life, as some- 
thing social and common. 

The whole conception that the externalization of the Christian 
life is something accidental only to the constitution of this life it- 
self — a sort of mechanical machinery, to help it forward in an out- 
ward way — is exceedingly derogatory to the Church, and injurious 
in its bearings on religion. An outward Church is the necessary 
form of the new creation in Christ Jesus, in its very nature ; and 
must continue to be so, not only through all time, but through all 
eternity likewise. Outward social worship, which implies, of 
course, forms for the purpose, is to be regarded as something es- 
sential to piety itself. A religion without externals, must ever be 
fantastic and false. The simple utterance of religious feeling, by 
which the spirit takes outward form, is needed, not for something 
beyond itself, but for the perfection of the feeling itself. Forms, 
iu this sense, not as sundered from inward life, of course, but as 
embracing it, enter as a constituent element into the very life of 
Christianity. As a real, human, historical constitution in the 
world, the outward and inward in the Church can never be di- 
vorced, without peril to all that is most precious in the Christian 
faith. We have no right to set the inward in opposition to the 
outward, the spiritual in opposition to the corporeal, in religion. 
The incarnation of the Son of God, as it is the principle, forms 
also the true measure and test, of all sound Christianity, in this 
view. To be reed, the human, as such, and of course the divine 
also in human form, must ever externalize its inward life. All 
thought, all feeling, every spiritual state, must take body, (in the 
way of word, or outward form of some sort,) in order to come 
at all to any true perfection in itself. This is the proper, deep 
sense of all liturgical services in religion. The necessity here 



6 



PREFACE. 



affirmed is universal. The more intensely spiritual any state 
may be, the more irresistibly urgent will ever be found its ten- 
dency to clothe itself, and make itself complete, in a suitable ex- 
ternal form. Away with the imagination, then, that externals in 
Christianity, (including the conception of the visible Church it- 
self,) are something accidental only to its true constitution, a cun- 
ningly framed device merely for advancing some interest foreign 
from themselves. To think of the Church, and of Christian wor- 
ship, as means simply to something else, is to dishonour religion 
itself in the most serious manner. 

If the present work may serve to fix attention on the momen- 
tous point with which it is concerned, and thus contribute indi- 
rectly even to a clearer understanding of Protestant truth, I shall 
feel that it has not been written in vain. May God accept it, and 
crown it with his blessing. J. W. N. 

Mercersburg, April, 1846. 



CONTENTS. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. — Translation from Ullman. 

ON THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Object and Nature of the Inquiry, . . . . . 13 

Historical Forms of Christianity. — Parallel in the general progress of 

Modern Reflection on its nature, / . . . . .15 

Conception of Christianity as Doctrine, .... 19 

Conception of Christianity as Moral Law, . . . .23 

Schleiermacher's view of it as the Religion of Redemption, . . 24 

True Distinction. — Christ's Person. — Doctrine of the Divine and Hu- 
man in the form of Life, . . . . .27 

Hegel and the Modern Speculation, ..... 39 

Actual constitution of Christianity, as the union of God and Humanity 

through Christ, . . . . . . . .33 

Contrast with Heathenism and Judaism, .... 34 

Christianity the Absolute Religion, in which all others culminate. The 

Religion of Humanity, ....... 37 

True centre of the Christian system, from which all its parts gain their 

right portion and light, . . . ... 39 

Recapitulation. — Mysticism and Reformation, . . . .43 



CHAPTER I. 

REFORMED OR CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUFFER. 

Introductory Remarks. — -Importance of the Eucharistic Question. — Six- 
teenth Century. — Modern Protestantism. — Claims of the subject, . 61 

Sect. I. — Statement of the Doctrine. 

Authority of Calvin in the Reformed Church, ... 54 

Relation of the doctrine to the view taken of Christ's union generally 

with his people, ........ 54 

Distinctions on the side towards Rationalism ; the participation of the 
believer in Christ, not common relationship only to Adam; not a 
merely moral union ; not a union in law simply ; not communion 
with his divine nature alone or with the Holy Ghost as his representa- 
tive ; but a real communication with his substantia], personal, media- 
torial life, . . . . . . . 55 



s 



CONTENTS. 



The doctrine bounded on the opposite side. — Not transubstantiation ; 
nor consubstantiation. — Real conjunction with Christ, through faith, 
by the Spirit, . . . . . . . .58 

Grace of the Sacrament objective ; including the actual life of Christ, 

particularly in its human character, . . . . . 61 



Sect. II. — Historical Evidence. 



Reformed doctrine gradually established. — Relation of Zuingli to the 



Church. — His view of the Sacrament, . . . . .63 

Early Helvetic Church. — Confession of Basel. — First Helvetic Confes- 
sion, ......... 65 

Calvin — Extracts from his Institutes. — Catechism of Geneva, . . 67 

Tract Be vera participation, against Hesshuss, ... 71 
Common misrepresentation of Calvin's view. — His own statement of it 

clear and full. — Testimony of Schleiermacher, . . .73 

Farel and Beza. — Colloquy of Worms, . . . . 75 

Beza and Peter Martyr. — Conference at Poissy, . . . .76 

Gallic Confession. — Old Scotch Confession. — Belgic Confession. — Se- 
cond Helvetic Confession, ...... 79 

Heidelberg Catechism. — Circumstances of its formation. — Extracts. — 

Commentary on their sense, . . . . . .83 

Ursinus, the author of the Catechism. — His sacramental doctrine as 

exhibited by himself, ...... 90 

Hospinian. — General testimony, . . . . . .94 

The Synod of Dort, 95 
Westminster Confession. — Note on Church of England, . . 96 

Testimony of Hooker, ....... 98 

Extracts from Owen, the oracle of the Independents, . . . 101 



CHAPTER II. 

MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 

Sect. I. — Historical Exhibition. 

Falling away from the creed of the Reformation. — Most striking in the 
American Lutheran Church. — Note on the so called Lutheran Obser- 

ver , • • 105 

Same evil in the Reformed Church. — Baptists — Prevalence of the bap- 

tistic principle. — Sect system, ...... 107 

Extracts from Ridgely's Body of Divinity, . . . 109 

President Edwards. — Hopkins. — Bellamy, . . . .110 

Extracts from Dwight's Theology, .... \\2 

Extracts from Dick's Theology, . . . . . .113 

Dr. Green. — Barnes' Commentary, . . . . .115 



Sect. II. — Systems Contrasted. 



Difference real and seriously important, . . . . .117 

First point. — The Eucharist as related to other services, . . ng 

Second point. — Mysteriousness of the ordinance, . . .118 

Third point. — Idea of its objective value or force, . . . 120 

Fourth point. — Communion with Christ's person, . . . \22 

Fifth point. — Participation in his body and blood, . . . 124 

Claims of the question to earnest attention, . . . .126 



CONTENTS. 



9 



Sect. Ill — Faith of the Early Church. 

First general presumption here against the Modern Puritan view, as a 

departure from the faith of the orthodox Church in all ages, . 127 

Under all confusion and variation of views as to the mode, the idea of 
the fact has ever been the same ; namely, that the Eucharist involves 
a real communion with Christ's life, ..... 128 

Only such a faith could have been carried, by abuse, into the gross error 

of transubstantiation, ...... 129 

The idea of an offering for sin. — Atonement viewed as real, only as ap- 
prehended in Christ's person, . . . . . .130 

Testimony of Ignatius. — Justin Martyn, . . . .131 

Irenaeus. — The view of these fathers most general, . . .132 

Tertullian and Cyprian, . . . . . . .133 

Alexandrian fathers. — Clement. — Origen, . . . . .134 

Cyril of Jerusalem. — Chrysostom, . . . . .135 

Ambrose.— Augustine, . . . . . . .135 

In rejecting transubstantiation, the Reformers still acknowledged the 

authority of the early church, and appealed to the fathers, . 138 



Sect. IV. — Rationalism and the Sects. 
Second general presumption against the Modern Puritan view ; its 



affinity with the rationalistic tendency, theoretic and practical, . 139 

Socinianism of the Sixteenth Century, ..... 139 

Arminianism in the Seventeenth Century, .... 140 

Neological Rationalism in the Eighteenth Century, . . . 141 

General want of faith in this period, ..... 142 

Note on Storr and Reinhard, ...... 143 

Extracts from Mursinna, Doederlein, Knapp, .... 144 

Henke. — Wegscheider. — Bretschneider, .... 145 

Rationalistic Supranaturalism. — Its end, ..... 146 

Sect principle. — Its affinity with Rationalism, .... 147 

Hyper-spiritualism ends always in the flesh, .... 148 

Anabaptists. — Quakers, . . . . . .149 

Baptistic principle. — Sure index of schism and heresy, . . . 149 
Association of the Modern Puritan view with this false tendency, a just 

ground for jealousy, ....... 151 



CHAPTER III. 

SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 

Need of some formal modification, in the statement of the doctrine, . 155 



Sect. I. — Preliminary Positions. 

The Calvinistic theory not sufficiently clear, in the conception of life as 

an organic law, ....... 156 

Fails to insist properly on the absolute unity which belongs to the idea 

of person, . . . . . . • 157 

Comes to no clear representation of the distinction, between life as 

something individual and life as generic, .... 160 
These three points of great account, as it regards the apprehension of 

the doctrine, 161 



I 



10 CONTENTS. 

Sect. IT. — Theses on the Mystical Union, 

The race hopelessly lost in Adam, ..... 164 

This ruin includes soul and body, ...... 164 

Human nature recovered in Jesus Christ, .... 165 

The value of Christ's whole life and death, based on the generic char- 
acter of his humanity, . . . . . . .166 

The Christian Salvation a new Life, . . . . .166 

This life in all respects Human, . . . . . ,167 

The extension of it in the Church, ..... 167 

Our union with Christ consists in oneness of life, .... 168 

More intimate and deep than our union with the first Adam, . 168 

Includes necessarily a participation in the entire Humanity of Christ, . 169 

Embraces also the whole person of the believer, . . . 170 

All the result of a single undivided process, .... 171 

No material contact in the case, ..... 172 

No ubiquity of Christ's body ; no loss of his proper separate personality, 173 

This union goes beyond every other that is known in the world, . . 174 

Wrought only by the power of the Holy Ghost, . . . 175 

Only through the instrumentality of faith, .... 176 

The new life is a process, which will become complete finally in the 

resurrection, . . . . . . 176 

Sect. III. — Theses on the Lord's Supper. 

Nature of a Sacrament, . . . . . . .178 

The Lord's Supper a participation in the body and blood of Christ, and 

so of all his benefits, . . . . . . . 179 

The Lord's Supper has reference directly to the idea of atonement, as 

wrought out by Christ's death, ...... 179 

As imparting however a real interest in this, it involves a real commu- 
nication with the life of Christ, . . . . .180 

This extends to his tvhole person, ...... 181 

The eucharist as such the channel of this grace, . . . 182 

The communication always through the soul, in a central way, . .182 
Holds only in the case of believers, ..... 183 

Excludes transubstantiation and consubstantiation, . . .184 

Sect. IV. — False Theories Exposed, 

Every lower view of the Mystical Union more or less rationalistic and 

self-destructive, . . . . . . . 1S6 

The Socinian hypothesis, ....... 186 

The Pelagian hypothesis, . . . . . .187 

The theory of a divine i( moral suasion," .... 188 

Abstract legal imputation, ...... 1S9 

The Spirit as a surrogate for Christ's presence ; in the way of influence 

only; or in the way of new creation, ..... 193 

The idea of divided personality, . . . . . 198 



CHAPTER IV. 

BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 

Sect. I. — The Incarnation, 

The Incarnation the key to all God's works and ways.— Nature and 

Man, ......... 199 



CONTENTS. 



11 



Relation of Christ to Humanity, ..... 200 

History looks always to the same centre, ..... 201 

Paganism, negatively prophetical of Christ, .... 202 

Judaism a positive preparation for his coming, .... 203 



Sect. II. — The New Creation, 

Relation of Christianity to previous life, .... 205 

Historical, and yet supernatural and new, .... 206 

A divine creation in the world, ..... 207 

Judaism the shadow only of what now became real in Christ, . . 207 

Christianity the absolute truth, ..... 207 
Christ's person the great miracle by which his mission authenticates 

itself, . . . . . . . . .208 

Sect. III. — The Second Adam. 

Christ a real man, ....... 210 

His humanity generic, ....... 210 

Parallel between Christ and Adam, . . . . .211 



Sect. IV. — Christianity a Life. 

Distinctive nature of Christianity, . . . . . .213 

The Ebionetic stand point, . . . . . .213 

Testimony of the Evangelist John, ..... 214 

Declarations of the Saviour himself, . . . . . 215 

Christ the Resurrection and the Life, ..... 216 

Testimony of the Apostle Paul, ..... 218 

The morality of the gospel based always on this view, . . . 220 



Sect. V. — The Mystical Union. 

Christ the principle and ground of the entire Christian life, . . 221 

The Spirit under the New Testament, ..... 222 
Twofold aspect of Christ's person, as exhibited in the flesh and in the 

Spirit, 22S 

His life in the Spirit flows over into the persons of his people, . . 224 

His presence by the Spirit involves his personal presence, . . 225 
His existence in the Spirit includes his full humanity as well as his 

divinity, ......... 226 

The spiritual or pneumatic body. ..... 226 

Proper conception of the resurrection, ..... 228 

Nature of the mystical union, ...... 229 

Allegory of the vine and its branches, ..... 229 

Allegory of the body and its members, .... 230 

Illustration from the idea of marriage, . . . . .231 

Striking phraseology of the New Testament, .... 233 

Christians complete in Christ, ...... 233 

Olshausen on Rom. viii. 30, ...... 234 



Sect. VI.— John vi. 56—58. 

Importance of the passage, 237 

Christ the bread of life, ...... 238 

Advance upon the general thought, ..... 238 

Correspondence with the idea of the eucharist, . . * 239 



12 



CONTENTS. 



Reference directly to the atonement ; but to this as comprehended in 

Christ's life, ........ 239 

The life only, gives reality and force to the atonement, . . 240 

All by the Spirit, not in the flesh, ...... 241 

Bearing on the eucharistic question, ..... 242 

Sect. VII. — The Lord's Supper. 

True method of using the Scriptures, ..... 244 
Christianity a real supernatural constitution in the world. — This must 

be felt to judge properly of the Sacraments, . . . 246 

Relation of the Passover to the Lord's Supper, .... 249 

The Institution of the Lord's Supper, .... 251 

The Reality of all that was Shadow, in the Jewish Sacrament, . . 252 

Communion in the covenant only by communion in the sacrifice, . 253 

Passage, 1 Cor. x. 16, . . • . . . 254 

Passage, Eph. v. 30-32, ...... 254 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



In the January number of the Theologische Studien und 
Kritiken, for 1845, there is an admirable article, from the pen 
of Br. C. Ullmann,* Professor in Heidelberg, on " The Dis- 
tinctive Character of Christianity," well worthy of being 
carefully studied by all who take an interest in the present state 
of the Church. It has occurred to me, that I cannot do better 
in the way of introducing the present work, than to furnish here 
a full abstract, or a free compressed translation rather of its valu- 
able contents. 

1. 

Christianity, in its substantial contents, has been always the 
same. The form of its apprehension however, on the part of the 
Church, has varied with the onward progress of its history. At the 
start, it was the fresli life of childhood, without reflection. The 
first germs of a Christian theology, its great leading doctrines 
separately taken, were gradually produced during the first centu- 
ries, in the way of apologetic controversy with surrounding 
errors. From the fourth century, the entire intellectual strength 
of the Church appears devoted to the object of settling and 
establishing particular doctrines ; still however only in their sepa- 
rate form. The Scholastic period of the middle ages, took up 

* The distinguished author of the work Reformat oren vor der Reformation ; 
for full historical knowledge, comprehensive views, clear, calm reflection, 
and masterly power of representation, one of the finest living writers cer- 
tainly of Germany. The article here noticed has been published also as a 
separate pamphlet, and seems to have attracted more than usual attention. A 
new work, I may add, is recently announced from the same writer under the 
interesting title, The Church of the Future, in which no doubt the same views 
are more fully exhibited. 
2 



14 



Preliminary essay. 



what was thus fixed in the way of faith, and laboured to reduce 
all to a general system. Throughout this whole progress of 
theological development, however, the distinctive constitution of 
Christianity itself, as compared with other forms of religion, can 
hardly be said to have come into view. Even the Reformers of 
the sixteenth century, thoroughly imbued as they were with its 
living spirit, were too fully occupied with the work of setting it 
free from church oppression, to bestow much reflection on this 
point. The question has been reserved for the Modern Period; 
which has felt itself urged moreover, by its philosophical and 
historical cultivation in particular, to direct towards it a large 
measure of its attention. During the last fifty years, numerous 
attempts have been made to determine the characteristic nature 
and genius of Christianity ; of very different tendency of course, 
reflecting always the theological life under whose influence they 
were formed. Thus Storr made the distinction to consist mainly 
in the supernatural, the miraculous, the positive, as comprehended 
in the Christian religion; Herder, in its character of universal 
humanity ; Chateaubriand, in its sublime and captivating beauty. 
But we owe it to the christological struggles of our own time in 
particular, that the specific nature of Christianity, and its inmost 
constitution, have begun to come more freely into the light, than 
ever before. 

The theological position of the present time maybe considered 
especially favourable, for a proper appreciation of the truth in 
the case of the important inquiry here brought into view. It 
has been too common heretofore, to proceed on some particular 
conception of Christianity, as Primitive, Catholic, Protestant, 
&c. ; by which, as a matter of necessity, a single historical sta- 
dium, arbitrarily bounded according to the pleasure of the inquirer, 
has been made to stand for the idea of the whole ; thus causing 
certain phases of the system, its divinity for instance, or its 
humanity, its doctrinal, or its ethical, or it may be its aesthetic 
character only, to represent the general life of which each could 
be said to form but a single side. Now however, as the result 
of our historical cultivation itself, we stand on higher ground. 
We are able to take a comprehensive survey of Christianity as 



t 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



15 



an organic whole, under all the aspects in which it is presented 
to our view, in its origin, and throughout the entire stream of its 
development, down to the present time. In this way, it is 
made much more easy than before, to reach the true life centre 
of the whole, and to recognize the beating heart from which all 
has been formed, and that still continues to animate all perpetu- 
ally in its several parts. 

When we speak of the distinctive character of Christianity, 
it implies the idea of something general as well as particular in 
its constitution. As general it is religion; as particular the 
Christian religion. But these two conceptions, in this case, are 
bound inseparably together. We cannot so abstract from Chris- 
tianity its particular specific character, as to leave the general 
idea of religion behind. It must exist under the specific form 
which belongs to it, or it is nothing, a mere abstraction, destitute 
of all reality. Christianity is not religion in the first place, with 
something added to it to make it Christianity ; but as religion 
itself, it is at the same time in its inmost ground, this particular 
form of religion, exclusively complete in its own nature, and dif- 
ferent in all its parts, by the spirit which pervades the whole, from 
every other religion. As thus individual and general at once, it 
claims to be the absolute truth itself ; not a religion simply, as 
one among many, but the one, universal, all perfect religion of 
humanity in its widest sense. Essential and specific here flow 
together, and cannot be kept asunder. 

2. 

It belongs to the modern period, we have said, that it has come 
to exercise a conscious reflection on the nature of Christianity. 
This reflection has its history, its regular development from one 
stage still forward to another. This will be found to correspond 
strikingly, only with vast difference as to time, with the historical 
conformations under which the Christian life itself has appeared, 
from period to period, since its first revelation in the world. The 
spirit of Christianity has been carried first in a real way, by an 
evolution of many centuries, through the same phases, that have 



16 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY, 



since been repeated, with more rapid succcession, in the modern 
effort to determine theoretically in what this spirit consists. 

It started, as before remarked, in the character of a new life. 
So it meets us, with full harmony and perfection, in the person 
of its Founder. So it is exhibited to us more inadequately in 
the apostles and the apostolical churches. The mere existence 
of this life however was not enough. It was necessary that the 
Church should come to a full and free apprehension of what it 
comprehended. This called for a separation of its elements, 
involving necessarily more or less confusion and conflict and one- 
sided action, as the only process by which it was possible, in the 
present state of the world, to advance from the simplicity of 
childhood to the consciousness of spiritual manhood. Hence the 
long course of development, revealed to us in Church History. 
In this process, the different constituent elements or forces in- 
cluded in Christianity could not, in the nature of the case, come 
in promiscuously at one time for such share of attention as they 
were entitled to claim. Some one interest must still take the lead 
of another, determined by the general character of the time ; and 
thus for every grand period in history we have a particular side 
of Christianity standing forth prominently to view as its domi- 
nant characteristic form ; till in the end, as the result of the 
whole process, all such single and separate manifestations may 
come to be united again in the full symmetrical perfection of that 
one glorious life to which they severally belong. 

The process now mentioned began naturally with Doctrine, 
which it was attempted to settle first in a general way, and then 
in single articles. The dogma producing period extends in par- 
ticular, from the fourth century on into the sixth. For this 
service the Grecian mind, which was then predominant in the 
Church, might be said to have a special vocation. With the fall 
of the old world, and the rise of a new life among the western 
nations, Christianity was required to exercise its power in a dif- 
ferent way. It must form the manners, and regulate the life of 
the rude population with which it was called to deal. The main 
interest now accordingly was its moral authority. It became 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



17 



in the hands particularly of the Roman Church, a system of 
Law, a pedagogic institute for the government of the nations. 
In this character however, it only made room for itself to appear, 
with new life, as the Gospel; a change effected chiefly through 
the German spirit, which included in its very constitution an 
evangelical or free tendency, and was gradually prepared to assert 
its ecclesiastical independence in this way. With the Reforma- 
tion, the mind of the Church, no longer in its minority, forced 
its way back to the proper fountain-head of Christianity, and 
laid hold of it in the form of Redemption ; the justification of 
the sinner before God, and the principle of freedom for the con- 
sciousness of the justified subject himself in all his relations. 
Along with these three leading conceptions of Christianity, as 
doctrine, as a system of law, and as a source of redemption 
and spiritual freedom, we find still a fourth unfolding itself from 
an early period, with steadily increasing strength. It is the view, 
which makes religion to consist in the union of man with God, 
and of course finds in this the distinctive character of Christianity. 
It is regarded as the absolutely perfect religion, because it unites 
the divine and human fully as one life. This view may be 
traced to a remote antiquity, but comes forward more decidedly 
in the mysticism of the middle ages, and appears now most com- 
pletely revealed in the philosophical and theological speculation 
of the modern time. From the first however, it has exhibited 
itself under two divergent tendencies, one pantheistic, and the 
other recognizing a personal God. Of these, the first has be- 
come widely prevalent at the present day ; but the last must be 
regarded of course as the only legitimate form of thinking in the 
case, and may be expected in the end universally to prevail. 

Such are the ground types, by which the conception of Chris- 
tianity has been differently moulded under different circumstances. 
They are characteristically represented by as many several forms 
of Church life. The interest of doctrine finds its proper expres- 
sion in the Greek Church, self-styled significantly the Orthodox, 
the Church of Christian Antiquity. As a disciplinary institute, 
the Christian system has its fit character in the Roman Church, 
with its claim of universal authority, challenging for itself the 

2* 



18 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



title Catholic, the Church of the Middle Ages. To the idea of 
redemption and freedom answers the Church which has sprung 
up among the nations of German extraction, rightly denominated 
Evangelical, the Church of the Reformation. The Church 
finally in which all these stages of development are to be carried 
forward together to their highest truth, under a form of Christi- 
anity that shall actualize the conception of a full life union with 
God, and to which it may be trusted the ecclesiastical agitations 
of our own time form the transition, may be characterized as the 
Church of the Future, whose attributes shall be spirituality, 
catholicity, and freedom, joined together in the most perfect com- 
bination. 

Correspondent now we say with this historical progress through 
which the apprehension of Christianity has been carried in the 
actual life of the Church, appears the course of modern theology 
as concerned with the same subject in the way of reflection. It 
has been described successively as doctrine, as an ethical law, as 
a system of redemption, and ultimately, though not always in the 
same way, as a religion based on the idea of a real union with 
God. All this involves a regular advance undoubtedly from the 
outward to the more inward. It is most natural and obvious, to 
conceive of Christianity first as doctrine. Then in view of its 
practical ends, it seems to be essentially ethical, or as Schleire- 
macher terms it, teleological, in its character. Again, its highest 
morality is found to spring from the fact of redemption and 
atonement, and thus to centre upon the person of Christ. Finally 
it is felt that the person of the Redeemer can have such force, 
only as the divine and human, God and man are in the first place 
reconciled and united in its very constitution, as the ground of 
all redemption for the race. 

As might be expected these different views of Christianity 
appear in close relation with the various forms in which the 
idea of religion itself has been held ; for as it is taken to be the 
absolute truth of all religion, it must of course participate in its 
essential character, whatever this may be supposed to be. Viewed 
as doctrine accordingly, it finds support in the conception of reli- 
gion as a mode of knowing God, its prevailing definition, especi- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



ally among the orthodox, in the period preceding Kant. Its next 
character, that of law, corresponds with the theory by which, in 
conformity with the philosophy of Kant, all religion was resolved 
into a mere postulate of morality. In its evangelical form, as the 
power of a divine redemption, it rests on the idea of religion as a 
state of feeling or immediate consciousness. But the relation of 
man to God in religion does not spring either from his under- 
standing, or will, or feeling, separately considered. It includes 
all at once in the totality of his personal life. On this view 
therefore is based lastly that apprehension of Christianity which 
makes it to be the union of God with humanity, and under this 
form only the source of all light and holiness and salvation. 

The first three views which have been described have seve- 
rally their measure of truth ; but the full truth requires their 
comprehension, in a living way, under the last. Hence also 
this last, to be genuine and right, must incorporate in itself the 
other less perfect conceptions. Christianity can be properly 
regarded as the union of God and humanity, only where due 
account is made at the same time of its doctrinal, ethical, and 
soteriological character, and all is made to rest on its original, 
inalienable nature, according to which it is no matter of thought 
or logic merely in any form, but action, history, and life. No 
pantheistic view of course can be admitted, in the case. Chris- 
tianity is a revelation of the living God, by which the divine and 
human are historically united in the person of Christ, and which 
continues to bring the race subsequently into union with God 
only by redeeming it at the same time from the power of sin. 
The proper expression to denote the fact is therefore, not " the 
unity of the divine and human," which is too general, and liable 
to be taken in a pantheistic sense ; but what is far more definite 
and concrete, " the union of God and man." 

3. 

The modern theology, in its course of reflection upon the 
nature of Christianity, resolved it first, we have said, into the 
idea of doctrine. 

This was done in two ways. Either all was taken in the 



20 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



form of a positive revelation, accredited as truth by God himself, 
and to be received on his authority alone ; or without any regard 
to its historical character, the Christian system was considered 
to be simply the first manifestation of a theory of rational reli- 
gion, which it was the business of theology to divest of its original 
temporary covering, that its proper everlasting verity might come 
fullv into view. Thus we have Super naturalism and Natural- 
ism. With all their opposition to each other, they were agreed 
in making Christianity to be essentially doctrinal in its character. 
Here however an important difference had place. Along with 
other positive elements, Supernaturalism received of course also 
what is said in the Scriptures concerning the person of the Re- 
deemer, though as a dogma simply among other dogmas, rather 
than in any other light. Naturalism on the other hand, with its 
aversion for all that is concrete and historical in religion, could 
not retain the idea of any significance whatever in the person of 
Christ. It went so far as to utter the wish even, that his name 
might have been wholly concealed from the Christian world, so 
that it could have enjoyed the full benefit of the truth he taught, 
without being led into a superstitious misuse of the teacher himself ! 

That the true nature of Christianity was not to be understood 
in this way, is now admitted on all hands. Naturalism is called 
to mind only as a spiritual curiosity, belonging to other days. 
But the other course also, though more conservative so far as the 
contents of the Gospel were concerned, was no better as to form 
in relation to the point now under consideration. It failed entirely 
to make known the distinctive character of Christianity. This 
consists not, under any view, exclusively or prevailingly in doc- 
trine. The true idea of religion itself, as well as the whole 
history of the Christian revelation, contradicts such a supposition. 
Religion does indeed include knowledge as one of its elements ; 
but to conceive of it as an intellectual apprehension only, is to 
mistake its true life entirely. Its inmost nature is love and reve- 
rence, a pervading sense of dependence on God and communion 
with him, a full self-surrendry to the idea of his presence and 
will. If religion consisted in doctrine, it might be imparted fully, 
like logic or mathematics, in the way of definition and demon- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



21 



stration. But this is impossible. Instruction is called for, it is 
true, in its service ; but the proper creative impulse of its life is 
not found in the conceptions thus imparted ; it must spring from 
the general life of religion itself, as something already at hand, 
acting on the religious susceptibility of the subject. So with the 
individual ; so with the race. Parents and teachers, prophets 
and founders of religion, accomplish their commission best in the 
way of living representation. Compared with this, mere instruc- 
tion is cold and dead. It is only life, in the sphere of religion, 
that can create and call forth life. The notion of doctrine falls 
immeasurably short of what we mean by religion, viewed in its 
living concrete character. To make the one synonymous with 
the other, is a sheer contradiction. Conceptions and thoughts 
with regard to divine things cannot even produce any true and 
sound piety ; much less may they be taken for such piety itself. 

So it is clear, that Christianity in particular appears among 
men under no such character. In one view it is indeed a doc- 
trine. Not however in the modern sense, as a system of abstract 
propositions and proofs ; in this form it might have founded, per- 
haps, a school, but never a Church, or world-religion. It is the 
proclamation primarily of something that has taken place, a 
testimony, or joyful message. Not in the way of thought, but 
in the way of actual occurrence and transaction, as the compre- 
hension of a system of glorious religious facts, has Christianity 
extended and filled with new life the spiritual consciousness of 
the world. This is its proper original force ; the doctrine follows 
afterwards, only as the representation of what God has done. 
But still the doctrine itself, even in this form, has no power as 
such to generate life. This springs only from the presence of a 
higher life, already derived in the teacher himself from Christ. 
His teaching is but the experimental expression, w r e may say, of 
this life. Thus the apostles and evangelists, as heralds of the 
Christian salvation, preceded in the beginning the proper teachers 
of Christian doctrine ; and so in every age, the Church has always 
begun with testimony, and only afterwards proceeded to instruc- 
tion and science ; while the true power of her doctrine, at the 



22 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

same time, has ever resulted from the life which belongs origi- 
nally to her Founder, and continues itself from him in his people. 
True, the actual in the case of Christianity has its significance 
not merely as something that has taken place, but as the realiza- 
tion of the highest religious ideas. These ideas may be abstract- 
ed from the facts, and formed into a system, either popular or 
scientific. Hence for theologians in particular, who are most 
occupied with this work, Christianity has the semblance of being 
itself a sum of doctrinal propositions. Only however as the idea 
of apprehension or science, in the case, is confounded with that 
of the object they embrace. Christianity must indeed be formed 
into doctrine for the purposes of popular and scientific instruc- 
tion ; but in its own nature, it still remains life, living power, a 
revelation of the Spirit in the form of facts. 

Even if Christianity be regarded as doctrine mainly, we must 
still ask, in what the specific distinction of this doctrine consists ? 
But no such distinction, it is plain, can be found in any particular 
religious or moral proposition, such as Christianity may have in 
common with other religions. It consists in what Christ speaks 
of himself and his relation to God, as also of the new posture 
towards God into which he has brought the human family ; and 
again in the testimony of the Apostles concerning his person and 
work. This however carries us at once beyond the sphere of 
doctrine, to that which constitutes its ground and object, the 
creative force of the religious life itself as revealed under its 
highest character in Christ. That wiiich is most essential in 
the mission of Christ, is his ^//"-exhibition. This runs through 
his whole life. It includes, of course, his testimony concerning 
himself, and the account of the impression which was made by 
him upon others. Words and doctrines consequently belong to 
the representation. But what is thus partial only and indepen- 
dent, must not be taken for the original whole, by which alone 
the distinctive character of Christianity is determined. This is 
not the Christian doctrine, but the general life-revelation from 
which it springs. Only as life, is Christianity the light of men ; 
as the Saviour himself clearly signifies, when he says, not that 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



23 



his doctrine is the truth, but, / am the truth, which is immedi- 
ately referred again to this, that he is also the life. 

4. 

The next view places the distinctive character of Christianity 
mainly in its ethical force, its power as a Rule of life. This 
stands closely connected with Kant and Rationalism, as it pro- 
ceeded from his school. It went along with the conviction, that 
the human mind can attain to no sure knowledge of the superna- 
tural and divine in a theoretic way, but only as it may be necessary 
to assume it in obedience to the demands of our moral nature. 
What morality requires as a postulate for its own support, may 
be counted certainly true, though in other respects wholly un- 
known. The moral law became here the absolute measure of truth. 
Morality in man occupied the first and highest place. Religion 
was something secondary and subordinate, necessary only as 
required by the other for its own service. Christianity then was 
an ethical law ; starting in the form . of positive divine precepts, 
but identical at last, in its true and proper substance, with the 
demands of the practical reason itself, by which accordingly it is 
to be tried and interpreted. Christ was the great lawgiver for 
humanity ; the Church a platform, for the grand contest of good 
and evil in the history of the race. Faith in God and the retri- 
butions of a future life, resolved itself into a firm persuasion that 
virtue must at last prevail. It was faith in the moral order of 
the world. 

We freely allow the great importance of this ethical concep- 
tion of Christianity. It surpasses the doctrinal in this, that it 
brings into view more fully its proper dynamic nature, its teleo- 
logicai character, the relation of the whole to a supreme moral 
end. It turns attention also more towards the author of the reli- 
gion, as being himself, though indeed only in an idealistic way, 
the centre of the whole system. It served powerfully moreover, 
one may say to its credit, to hold the age to which it belonged on 
good terms with Christianity, by presenting towards it that side 
of the system, which alone it was prepared to appreciate and 
approve. Still the view is by no means sufficient. It proceeds 



24 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY 



again on a false idea of religion, and misses what is truly specific 
in Christianity. Piety is more than a mere support to morality, 
means for an end beyond itself. Christianity is not simply 
legislative, but creative. Its chief elements are presented to us 
in the words, redemption, atonement, grace, and are overlooked 
by this theory altogether. Christianity is not, like the moral 
law, a shall or must, but a fulfilment and satisfaction, a yea and 
amen; not a requisition in God's name, but a divine gift that 
of itself, when planted in the heart, impels it without command- 
ment to the most free morality. Duty, which with Kant is all 
in all, becomes in the Christian sphere nothing; since love is 
every thing, and fulfils of itself the whole law. The categoric 
imperative is struck dumb before that great word : We love him, 
because he hath first loved us I 

Viewed either as doctrine or law, the universal difference of 
Christianity from other religions, whether Pagan or Jewish, is 
not suffered to appear. As a doctrinal system merely, though it 
might be more perfect in its kind, it would not differ specifically 
from the schools of the heathen world ; as a law, though with 
higher and more excellent requisitions, it would be still spe- 
cifically of one class with Judaism and the religion of Moham- 
med ; an exalted, purified Judaism only, not a new order of reli- 
gion, with a principle altogether its own. In both cases we 
should be at a loss to explain, how it could become the ground 
of a complete regeneration of the human life, the source of a 
new order of world-history altogether ; how it could give birth 
to characters and forms of thinking, such as we meet with in 
Paul and John ; how in one word it could produce the Christian 
Church with all that it includes, not simply in the form of thought 
and precept, but in the way also of actual power and effect. 

m 

5. 

To reach the distinctive character of Christianity then in this 
view, as something new, original, and different from all other 
religions, not merely in quantity but in quality, and for the pur- 
pose of doing fuller justice also to those cardinal elements of the 
system that are comprehended in the term Gospel, Sehleierma- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



25 



cher, more historical than the Rationalists, sought to refer all 
back to its last ground or living root, the person of Christ himself. 
In doing so, he was viewed not as a teacher or lawgiver primarily, 
but with far more depth and comprehension as a Redeemer ; and 
thus Christianity was made to be, in its ground character, the world 
historical Religion of Redemption. He did not deny that it was 
doctrinal, much less that it was ethical, in which view precisely he 
styled it teleological. But he felt that a thorough and full distinction 
of Christianity from all other monotheistic religions made it neces- 
sary, to single out that which has constituted it a peculiar religion 
from the beginning, and which may be said to form the interior 
unity that holds it together in the whole course of its develop- 
ment. This he found in the idea of redemption, and especially 
in the manner of its realization in the person of Jesus of Naza- 
reth. This idea indeed is not wanting in other religions also, 
and in their way, by purifications, penances, and offerings, they 
endeavour to make it actual. But there is this essential differ- 
ence in the case of Christianity. Christ does not simply order 
and prescribe the process of redemption, but accomplishes the 
whole work in himself; so that it is not merely by him, but in 
him, that it is made to reach the world, under the most perfect and 
all sufficient form ; since he stood in full union with God and 
was free from all sin. Thus the person of its founder, in the 
case of this religion, becomes identified with its whole constitu- 
tion, as in no case besides. Moses was the medium simply, 
through which a particular institute was established, for himself 
as much as for others. Not so Christ. The religion which he 
brought into the world, was not merely given by him ; it was in 
him, and remains in him still, as its living fountain ; he is him- 
self its grand constituent, as being the perfect, everlasting Re- 
deemer, and as such the One without a fellow, over against 
whom all others stand as subjects for redemption. That which 
constitutes Christianity, as distinguished from all other forms of 
religion, is the reference, according to Schleiermacher, which all 
that belongs to it is found to include, to the consciousness of 
redemption through the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

A most important advance certainly, in the process of reflection 
3 



26 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



on this subject. Doctrine regards knowledge simply ; law regards 
only the will; but redemption reaches out from feeling as its 
centre over the whole inner man. By this view accordingly, w r e 
are brought to a more full and deep conception of religion, than 
before. Christianity acquires a more concrete historical charac- 
ter. Its dynamic nature is placed in far clearer light, as not only 
revealing itself in the form of imperative authority, but as im- 
parting also freedom and spiritual power in the way of a new 
creation. All this goes far beyond the previous definitions, in 
determining the universal peculiarity of the Christian religion. 
The epoch formed by the theology of Schleiermacher has at 
least carried us irrevocably beyond the conception of Christi- 
anity, as being either merely doctrinal or merely ethical. Every 
one, who is not in a state of absolute theological stagnation, un- 
derstands now that the faith of Christ has respect not only to 
his doctrine but to his person ; and that Christianity is a divine 
life, the principle of a new creation, which unfolds itself conti- 
nually with free inward necessity by its own force and according 
to its own law. Every one knows too, that this new creation 
proceeds from Christ, in the character of a Redeemer, and that 
no other religion before or since has ever exhibited any thing of 
the same sort. But still the last point required for a complete 
definition of the subject is not yet reached. The general de- 
fect of Schleiermacher's theology, meets us also in his concep- 
tion of the specific nature of Christianity. 

The principle of redemption does by all means give character 
to Christianity. But to this idea, which itself with Schleierma- 
cher is found deficient through the want of a proper appreciation of 
the nature of sin, another of at least equal importance is always join- 
ed, the idea of atonement. Redemption supposes atonement. No 
one can feel himself to be redeemed, who is not reconciled with 
God. This of itself implies that the idea of atonement is some- 
thing higher and more original than the idea of redemption, 
which ought not therefore to be overlooked in settling the in- 
quiry, what is Christianity? Again, redemption is internal, the 
deliverance of its subject from the power of sin ; atonement 
carries in itself, for the subject, an outward reference, establish- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



ing a right relation between the sinner and a holy God. The 
first is essentially a matter of feeling, a state thus or condition of 
the individual man ; the other looks beyond the individual to 
God, and includes in this way something objective, (forgiveness 
of sin, justification) into which must enter necessarily also some 
knowledge of the divine nature. Schleiermacher, in full con- 
formity with the prevailingly subjective character of his theo- 
logical views, and his conception of religion as a form of feeling, 
has here also confined himself exclusively to what is matter of 
inward experience, the Christian salvation as carried forward in 
the life of the subject. But it is an inadequate view of religion to 
place it in feeling, to the exclusion of knowledge and action. A 
full, sound piety embodies the understanding and will also as 
original elements in its constitution. So especially, in the case 
of Christianity. It is a revelation indeed only as it is a system 
of redemption ; but it is a system of redemption also, only as 
it reveals the character of God in a new and perfect light, making 
him known as a merciful and loving Father, the source of all 
grace and salvation through Jesus Christ. This goes beyond 
the mere state of the subject himself, and calls for a conception 
more suitable to the objective side of the case than that of re- 
demption. Such is the conception of atonement. And then 
once more ; both redemption and atonement, as accomplished 
by Christ, are a work. But all spiritual activity is based on 
some particular form of existence or being. So eminently, in 
the case of Christ. All that he did, took its character from what 
he was. As then the work of redemption rests on that of atone- 
ment, so do both together again rest on that of the proper being 
of Christ, as distinguished from all others. To this therefore, 
Christ's peculiar personality, which is of force apart from all 
that he does, but necessarily reveals itself also in this way, we 
are directed as to that which is last and highest. Here we must 
expect to find the true fountain of Christianity, and its most 
fundamental characteristic distinction at the same time. 

6. 

What now is that in the personality of Christ, by which he 



28 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



is constituted a perfect Saviour, in the way of atonement and 
redemption ? We reply generally, his own substantial nature, 
at once human and divine ; his life filled with all the attributes 
of God, and representing at the same time the highest concep- 
tion of nature and man ; complete and self-sufficient in its own 
fulness, and yet by this fulness itself the free principle of a new 
corresponding life-process, in the way of self-communication, 
for the human world. This life itself however has again its 
central heart, to which especially we must look for the peculiar 
being of Christ. Here the whole theology of the present time, 
in all its different tendencies, may be said to have but one voice. 
That which constitutes the special being of Christ, makes him 
to be what he is and gives him thus his highest significance for 
the world, is the absolute unity of the divine and human in his 
person. Deity and manhood in him come fully together and 
are made one. This is the last ground of Christianity. Here 
above all we are to look for its distinctive character. 

All theological tendencies, w T e have said, are agreed on this 
point, so far as the general proposition is concerned. But when 
it comes to the particular sense and application of it, we 
find again a wide difference, amounting in part to full opposition. 
The main contradiction lies between the pantheistic speculation, 
which resolves the idea in question into a general fact belonging 
to the phenomenology of spirit, and the proper Christian view, 
by which all is made to rest on the acknowledgment of a per- 
sonal God and a positive revelation, as something historically 
real and individual. This difference is complete. Under either 
view indeed, whether the union of the divine and human be taken 
in an idealistic or realistic sense, the idea, where it is received 
at all, must always be allowed to rule and characterize the entire 
conception of Christianity, as the last principle of its signifi- 
cance and power; for no higher idea can have place in the 
sphere of religion, and where this elevation is reached, either by 
God's becoming man or by man's coming to the consciousness 
of his own eternal divinity as the pantheists talk, all else must 
take its form accordingly, and the religion thus constituted will 
be essentially different from every other in which this ground 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



29 



principle may be wanting. Still for the whole apprehension of 
Christianity, we may say, not only that much, but that all de- 
pends on the question, which of these views shall be adopted , 
whether this central fact shall be regarded as a general " unity 
of the divine and human" realizing itself in the consciousness 
of the race as such, or be conceived of as a concrete " union of 
God and man," that actualizes itself from a definite point and 
only under certain moral conditions. 

7. 

Hegel acknowledged Christianity as the absolute truth of reli- 
gKHiTTHe did so, because it has its essential nature in the incar- 
nation, exhibiting thus the unity of the divine and human. On 
this ground mainly, he undertook to reconcile Christianity with 
philosophy, and to show their full identity in their last results. 
For both this unity is the highest idea ; only, what Christianity 
holds in the concrete form of the individual, historical God-man, is 
raised by philosophy into the sphere of speculative thought as 
something general. It belongs to the nature of the absolute or 
divine spirit to actualize itself in humanity, and the human spirit 
accordingly, as it descends into the depths of its own being, 
recognizes itself to be divine. It is the nature of God to be hu- 
man, and to be divine is the nature of man. The consciousness 
of this we owe to Christianity. It made known to man his 
inborn divinity, put an end to the opposition between eternity 
and time, brought heaven down upon the earth, overthrew the 
dualistic antagonism of finite and infinite, and laid the foundation 
in this way for that Monismus des Gedankens, as they call it, 
which forms the great triumph of modern speculation. 

With this however the later Hegelians, of the so called left 
side, were by no means satisfied. The peace made between 
Christianity and philosophy by Hegel, appeared to them to 
be hollow. It was not allowed accordingly to stand. It was 
denied that Christianity includes such a unity of the finite and 
infinite as the truth requires. Either it was held to be in direct 
contradiction to the speculative principle of God's immanence 
in the world ; or else it was said, that the unity which it allowed 

3* 



30 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



between God and man, as being restricted to a single individual, 
had no force for the general mass of humanity and nature, in the 
case of which accordingly the dualistic contradiction remained 
still unsurmonnted. With this last view it was admitted indeed, 
that Christianity owes its world-historical power to such union 
of the divine and human as it exhibits, notwithstanding the iso- 
lated form in which it appears ; the idea at least served to stimu- 
late the human spirit to a new life, and places this religion high 
above all that had been known before. Still however the union 
in the case of Christ himself was not to be taken as real or his- 
torical; it was counted as mythical only, an idea made to take 
a concrete form in his person by the mere imagination of the 
Church. And then as it was but a transient fact for the Chris- 
tian faith itself, which failed at the same time to acknowledge the 
universal oneness of God 'and humanity, Christianity, it was 
contended, still fell short of the truth. There was still no pro- 
per reconciliation, save for Christ only, between God and man, 
the infinite and the finite, heaven and earth ; the unity allowed was 
not apprehended as a present divine fact, but only as something 
past in the Saviour himself, or as something still future in the 
heavenly world. 

We find then three ways of looking at the subject in the same 
school. They agree in considering the absolute identification of 
God with the world, (pantheism and monism), to be the highest 
truth. But the difference between them is very material. The 
first makes Christianity and speculation to be essentially the same ; 
the second throws them absolutely asunder ; the third allows them 
to come together, but only in a single point, the isolated centre 
of Christianity, which the modern speculation has extended into 
a whole world of truth not acknowledged by Christianity itself. 

Taking the school as a whole, it has the merit of having 
grasped with decision the main point in Christianity; it finds its 
grand distinction, its inmost nature, in the constitution of Christ's 
person, and places in full view thus its true specific character. 
But in doing so, it reduces this central point again to a mere 
caput mortuum, and sinks what in Christianity is the highest 
form of life, a divine act, most real and full of power, into an 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



31 



incomplete stage simply of speculation. For what is here styled 
unity of the divine and human, is not the union of God and man 
as different, accomplished in a real and perfect way in Christ, 
and taking effect also through him in the race ; but an original 
and eternal oneness, in virtue of which divinity and humanity 
are held to be essentially the same, God only the truth of man, 
and man the reality of God ; in such sort that man at a certain 
point of development, must necessarily come to the conscious- 
ness of his own truth, that is of his divine nature or unity with 
God. This point was reached in Christianity, whether in the 
consciousness of Christ himself, or only by means of him in the 
mind of the Church, would seem to be considered indifferent. 
In either case, the form in which the truth at first came into 
view, was very incomplete ; since the unity which belongs pro- 
perly to the race in general, was supposed to have place only in 
a single instance. It remained for modern philosophy to burst 
the bonds of this conception, and push the speculative germ con- 
tained in it to its proper perfection. But this was in fact to rob 
the conception itself of all its significance, whether retained as a 
symbol still or cast aside as of no farther use. Thus the system 
did indeed fix its eye on the centre, the very heart of Christi- 
anity ; but it was only to aim its deadly arrow the more surely at 
this vital point. 

Looking at the several views of the school separately, no 
attention whatever is due to that which regards Christianity as a 
religion which places God abstractly beyond the world. Every 
one who is at all acquainted with it must know, that while it 
distinguishes the one from the other, it teaches at the same time 
the existence of God in the world and of the world in God. It 
does not merge the being of God in the world, but allows him to 
fill it notwithstanding with his actual presence and power. The 
thought is in some sense correct, that Christianity has put an end 
to the opposition of the infinite and the finite, the divine and 
human. It is true at the same time however, that it acknow- 
ledges an absolute union of divinity and humanity only in Christ, 
and sees a hopeless dualism every where else. The unity in 
this case is not indeed restricted to Christ as a solitary, transient 



32 



PRELIMINARY* ESSAY. 



instance, in the way pretended by the objection ; it proceeds from 
him over into the spiritual organism of which he is the head, and 
becomes thus a permanent constitution for the race; heaven and 
salvation belong not exclusively to the next world, but have place 
also in the present life. Still Christianity is not for this reason 
monistic, in the Hegelian sense. It allows by all means a dual- 
ism ; a dualism that is not to be speculated or ignored simply out 
of the way, deeply seated as it is in the inmost consciousness of 
the whole human world ; the dualism of sin. The existence of 
sin finds its evidence for every man in his own conscience. By 
it moreover, he feels himself to be involved in the most terrible 
self-contradiction, and what is still worse, in direct opposition to 
a holy God. This dualism can be denied, only by denying 
either sin or God, or else both together. That is, he who does 
so must sacrifice his moral or religions consciousness, or with 
the destruction of both at once, subvert his whole spiritual nature. 
In any case he must at least discard Christianity entirely, which 
without the acknowledgment of this dualism has no meaning 
whatever. Speculation sets the dualism aside in the way of 
logic, joining opposites that are held to have been originally one ; 
but by such logical redemption no conscience is quieted, no duty 
turned into ability, no sinner born to a new life. Christianity 
makes full account of the opposition as it actually exists, shows 
holiness and sin, God and the world lying in wickedness, in 
sharp contradiction. But it overcomes all this in the way of 
historical fact, by bringing God and humanity to a true inward 
union, not in thought merely, but in an actual human life ; estab- 
lishing thus a real power of redemption, through which the race 
is made to participate in the same life, not by a single stroke of 
consciousness, but all the more surely by means of a severe 
moral process. Here accordingly the ethical and redemptional 
interests, of which Hegelian speculation makes so little account, 
are allowed to stand in their full force ; and Christianity altogether 
retains its true character as a theistic religion, in which God and 
the world though not sundered are clearly distinguished, a religion 
that acknowledges the absolute holiness of God, and leads to 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



union with him only in the way of deliverance from the power 
of sin* fc 

8. 

That Christ himself possessed the consciousness of entire 
unity with God, and that others were made to feel the presence 
of a divine life in his person, admits of no doubt. In one form 
or another this idea lay at the ground of the whole Christian 
faith. It wrought such world movement and world change, as 
no pious fiction, but a real life power only, could ever have pro- 
duced. Equally clear is it, that Christ's will was to impart his 
spirit and life to his people, and thus to continue and extend his 
existence in them as the proper life of the world. Both thoughts 
are exhibited in the fourth Gospel particularly, under the most 
manifold representation, as the highest idea of Christianity. 
Christ, himself first glorified of the Father, will glorify himself 
again in his people ; they shall eat his flesh and blood, that is, 
take into them his life ; cast into the ground by death, like a grain 
of wheat, he shall rise again as a plentiful seed in the Church, 
and multiply and perpetuate himself in this way through all time. 
All concentrates however in this, that he will draw them, through 
himself, to the Father, and make them one with the Father : 
" that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I 
in thee, that they also may be one in us" — and then again : " I in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and 
that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved 
them as thou hast loved me." All that belongs to God, belongs 
also to Christ, and with all this divine fulness he communicates 
himself to his people, makes his abode with them, and sanctifies 
them ; or as the apostle Paul expresses it, only in reversed order : 
"All is yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 

The ground of the Christian faith then, that to which it owes 
its origin and character, is the unity of Christ ivith God ; but 
along with this it includes with equal necessity the assurance, 
that the fact thus constituted is not single, solitary and transient 
in its nature, but must with the spirit and life of Christ extend 
itself to those also who believe in him, and so by degrees lo 



34 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



humanity as a whole. Christ is alone, as the unity in him was 
original and complete ; but he is not single, since that which was 
in him, is to become, according to the measure of receptivity, the 
possession of the whole race. A living head is not to be thought 
of apart from the body. No redeemed Church without a 
Redeemer ; but just as little a perfect Redeemer without a 
Church. Christ is made complete in his people. 

There can be no deeper idea in the sphere of religion. Does 
it indeed reveal itself, not merely as the ground thought, but as 
the ground fact of Christianity, imparting to it its inmost consti- 
tution 1 If so, three things will necessarily follow. First, the 
religion which includes this revelation, will carry just here its 
most distinctive seal and criterion as compared with other reli- 
gions. Secondly, it will hereby authenticate itself as the absolute 
religion, the faith of humanity. Thirdly, all that belongs to it 
will take its best form, and appear in its true light, from this 
centre. These several points then demand our attention. 

9. 

All religion stands essentially in the communion of man with 
God. The most perfect and intense form of communion between 
spiritual beings, where without the loss of individual, separate 
personality on either side, such a mutual interpenetration of spirit 
and nature has place, that the one may be said to live, without let 
or bar, freely and sweetly in the other, we call unity. The concep- 
tion however will be different, as the relation to which it is 
applied may be that of creature to creature merely, or that of the 
creature to the Creator, which must ever involve infinite distance 
between nature and nature, in the case even of the greatest 
affinity. As applied to this last relation, unity denotes that 
position of man towards God, in which God, meeting no obstruc- 
tion in man, communicates himself to him in the entire fulness 
of his Spirit, his love, his holiness ; whilst man acting purely and 
fully under the impulse of God's Spirit working in him, makes 
the divine will absolutely his own ; so that between self-con- 
sciousness and God-consciousness there is no distinction or 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



35 



conflict, but the first is fully taken up into the second, and ruled 
by it, and filled with it at every, point. 

Such a union, though in unconscious form, belonged to that 
state of innocence, in which man was originally formed. But 
this has yielded to a state of sin, bringing with it separation from 
God. The object of religion now is to restore what has been 
lost. This can be accomplished only in the way of atonement ; 
the last end however is always communion and perfect union 
with God, no longer in the form of unconscious innocence indeed, 
but with such ripe consciousness as springs from surmounted 
spiritual discord and conflict. 

The religions which preceded Christianity aimed also at this 
end. Judaism, as actuated by the idea of the Holy One and its 
strong sense of sin, in the way of atonement ; Heathenism, with 
its want of moral earnestness, in the way of more outward 
services. But it came not to a true communion, to say nothing 
of unity, between God and humanity, in either direction. The 
constitution of both sytems rendered this impossible. 

Heathenism never rose, as a religion, to the full conception of 
the divine, as something above nature, spiritual, holy, and in 
itself one. The divinity was pantheistically merged in nature, 
which itself came in this way to an apotheosis, and was honoured 
as divine. The two ideas were confounded, made to flow together. 
With such want of clear distinction, there was no room of course 
to speak of a real union. True, in its higher stages, Heathenism 
exhibits the divinity under the form of humanity, and seems in 
this way to join them together. But after all it is no true con- 
junction ; since we have neither a true God in such case nor a 
true man ; the God being subject to all sorts of human imperfec- 
tion, and the man having an unearthly fantastic nature that over- 
throws his reality. The idea of a full union of God and man, by 
an act of condescending love on the one side and under the condi- 
tion of holiness on the other, lay utterly beyond the whole sphere 
of thinking, which characterized the heathen world. 

Such an idea could have place only on the ground of a consti- 
tutionally ethical, monotheistic religion, in which a full distinction 
was made between God and the world. Judaism had this 



36 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY* 



character. But it was wanting on another side. What Heathen- 
ism confounded, Judaism not only distinguished but sundered. 
It was not indeed wholly without the conception of God's being 
in the world (Inweltlichkeit); but this was most imperfectly applied. 
According to the Jewish view, God works in the sphere of nature 
and humanity ; but it is outwardly upon both, rather than inwardly 
in them both. He works in an extraordinary, miraculous way, 
rather than in the quiet, orderly course of things. Hence his 
interpositions have the character of isolated, abrupt, transient 
occasions, leaving nature and man to themselves again as before ; 
whereas, the idea of a true and perfect union must imply always, 
a constant communication of the divine Spirit, a permanent 
indwelling of the divine nature, a fellowship on the part of man 
in the divine life that shall cover the whole tract of his existence. 
Here then we have God in his truth and man in his proper 
reality ; but the relation between them involves no true, full, 
unobstructed union. 

This is conceivable only on the basis of a religion, in which 
God and the world may be distinguished without being sundered, 
with a full recognition of God's grace as well as holiness on the 
one hand, as also of the capacity of man, according to his original 
human constitution, to participate in the divine nature on the 
other. All this now we find in Christianity, and in Christianity 
alone. God, in the Christian faith, is the self-existent Creator 
and Preserver of all things ; but ail live, move and have their 
being also in him, and bear witness of his presence. He is the 
infinitely exalted, and yet the infinitely near; communicating 
himself in boundless love and condescension ; in such sort, that 
where the condition of a sinless holiness is given, as in Christ, 
we find humanity admitted not merely to extraordinary illapses 
of the Spirit in the way of trance or vision or sudden inspiration, 
but to the privilege of a clear, full, unbroken consciousness of 
union with the divine life, as the natural and proper order of its 
own existence. Here we have the true God, holy and boundless 
in his love ; a true man, representing the idea of humanity, under 
every view, in the most perfect form ; and a true union, as holding 
in the undivided and indivisible oneness of a single living person- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



37 



ality. Thus is the point reached, which all previous religions 
struggled to reach in vain. Here is the great seal and criterion 
of Christianity, not merely distinguishing it from Heathenism and 
Judaism, but setting it high above them, and showing it to be the 
end in which their very nature requires them to pass away. 

10. 

By this very fact, Christianity is shown to be the absolute 
religion, the faith of humanity, that form of piety in which the 
consciousness of an imperishable nature may take for its motto 
the words : " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever." 

Religion in its very nature is Love. It starts in this character 
from God as love to man, and returns again in the form of human 
love to its source; a circling stream from God to God. Its 
highest manifestation on both sides, must constitute the utmost 
summit of the religious life. This we find in Christ. His mis- 
sion, by which he was given up to suffering and death, proceeds 
from an everlasting love, which spares not even that which it 
held dearest, in order to restore and save lost man. He himself 
enters into the will of this love, with the most perfect freedom. 
In every part of his life he shows a power of love, which for its 
sublimity and touching simplicity, its purity and invincibleness, 
cannot be counted in its origin and nature other than divine. 
And as he offers himself, through the force of this love, unreserv- 
edly to God, so he offers himself also, through the force of the 
same love, to his brethren of mankind also, in life, suffering and 
death, for the purpose of drawing them to God, and uniting them 
among themselves and with God. He is at once accordingly 
the most perfect expression of love in both directions, from God 
to man and from man to God, as well as of love to the brethren. 
He is a centre of love, divine and human intensely interwoven, 
with power to embrace the whole circle of humanity ; a fountain 
of love, from which all generations may draw without exhausting 
its fulness. No other religion exhibits any parallel, or resemblance 
even, to this. Hence it is only in Christianity that God is known 
as Love ; that the love of man to God is derived from his love as 

4 



38 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



first exercised towards them ; that love to brethren is made iden- 
tical with love to God ; and that such a deep view of the first is 
taken as to make even the want of it seem the sin of murder 
itself. Nor has the world ever gone beyond this exhibition since. 
Christ stands still, and must ever stand, in this view, without a 
parallel in history. The fairest and greatest that history has to 
show besides, is itself only what has sprung from the kindling 
power of his love. There is no room in fact -to think of anything 
higher than this. It includes all. Nor can the work of atone- 
ment and redemption ever be repeated, in the same form. Chris- 
tianity then, even in this view, as comprehended in the person of 
its Founder, is the utmost summit of religion. It cannot be 
transcended. 

But on this full fellowship of love rests also that moral and 
spiritual union between God and man, which forms the general 
criterion of what is highest in the religious sphere. In Christ, 
the Spirit of God worked without limitation or restraint ; his 
will was fully pervaded by the divine will ; he and the Father 
are one ; the unity between God and man is shown to be com- 
plete, opening for the race a sure way to new life. The specu- 
lative philosophy tells us that the consciousness of this unity is ; 
to be considered merely a new point reached in the process of 
world-thought, either in the mind of Christ himself or by the 
Church in its zeal to glorify his person. Very well. One can- 
not see indeed how the Church could come to this, without find- 
ing some sufficient ground for its idea in Christ himself. But 
be it so. The conception still remains one that is peculiar to 
Christianity, and as a conception even it cannot be surpassed by 
anything higher in religion. If religion consisted in thought 
merely, we should have here, under such view also, its crowning 
height. Only one thing would be mare, immeasurably more 
indeed, than this thought — its full actualization. This the Chris- 
tian faith, in pointed contradiction to the modern speculative 
philosophy, exhibits as a fact in Christ. Speculation too indeed 
pretends reality for its idea. But here it is found to halt. It 
has no right conception, in the first place, of unity, but substi- 
tutes for it identity ; if man is the manifestation of God by his 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



39 



very nature, there is no room to speak of his becoming one with 
God. And then, it comes to no true reality in the case. The 
reality is claimed for the race ; but this is made up of individuals, 
or as they prefer to term it copies, in every one of which the 
unity in question is troubled at best and incomplete; yea, it is 
against the nature of the idea, we are told, to exhaust itself in 
one individual. How then shall it come in this way to a full, 
clear manifestation ? Thus speculation seeks to extinguish the 
sun, that is actually shining pure and bright in the moral firma- 
ment, and offers in its room earthly tapers, which multiplied to 
any extent must ever fall immeasurably short of the same glory. 
We say on the contrary, if this idea of union between the divine 
and human be true, and the actualization of it necessary to satisfy 
the deepest want of the human spirit; and if every idea that is 
to be acknowledged as true and divine, requires to become 
actual ; then what the race fails to furnish here, we must seek in 
an individual. All that the case demands, has been clearly 
reached in Christ. In his person then the absolute consumma- 
tion of the religious life is brought to view, not in thought merely, 
but also in reality. All that remains, is that the theanthropic 
life thus constituted in the Redeemer himself, should be unfolded 
and carried out more and more in the human world. On this 
ground Christianity is the absolute religion in which all other 
religions may be said to culminate and become complete. Re- 
ligion and Humanity here are one, equally universal and equally 
permanent. 

11. 

Finally, it is from this point that all which is comprised in 
Christianity may be best arranged and understood. It serves 
to set each part in its true light and proper position. 

So in the case of Doctrine. This, as we have seen, is not an 
original or principal interest in Christianity, existing for itself or 
by itself. Its office is simply to represent and exhibit life. Like 
the statue of Mercury with which the Alcibiades of Plato com- 
pares Socrates, it is only as it were the hull, in which the real 
image of the deity, the person of the God-man, is enshrined. 



40 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



Self-representation and self-testimony, as before said, formed the 
main object in Christ's work. This included doctrine, it is true ; 
but always only in the one great relation now affirmed. Only 
as significant of the very life and being of Christ himself, could 
it have any value or force. Doctrine gives us Christianity in 
an outward way ; but the life of Christ is Christianity. 

Here also the idea of Revelation, which is more full than that 
of Doctrine though closely connected with it, comes to stand in 
its true light. Revelation is not simply an extension of the 
knowledge of God theoretically considered ; as it can have place, 
for a sinful world, only hand in hand with the removal of sin or 
redemption, it must unfold an actual economy of grace and 
power for this purpose, a real manifestation of God, as actively 
employed in the work of educating, enlightening, redeeming and 
sanctifying the human race. In this case again, the bare word 
is not enough. Revelation in this form stands higher indeed 
than the dumb, unclear revelation of mere nature; but it falls 
itself again far short of revelation in the form of an act. Only 
in this last form by a sum of salvation acts, unfolding his mind 
and will, can the living God become fully revealed. In the Old 
Testament we find a preparatory, shadowy approximation to- 
wards this end. But the case required at last the personal mani- 
festation of grace and truth, as they have been made to dwell 
among us by Jesus Christ. In this sense alone is Christianity 
a revelation, as the whole person of Christ, including his words 
and works, his life and death, his resurrection and exaltation, 
serves to bring into actual view the will of God as concerned in 
the salvation of men. This required on the part of the Re- 
deemer a full identification of mind and nature with God. But 
for this very reason, he himself, his person and not his doctrine, 
constitutes the revelation presented in Christianity ; and so, as 
being in him rather than through him, it must be regarded as 
holding, not in any separate function of his life, but in the undi- 
vided whole of his personality and history, his being and work- 
ing, doctrine, life, death, resurrection and glorification at the 
right hand of God, all that he was and is, as well as all that he 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



41 



has done and is doing still, as Head over all things to the Church 
to the end of time. 

Christianity is also Moral Law. If however it were law 
only or law essentially even, it would not have transcended the 
order of the Jewish religion ; it would be at best a reformed, 
generalized Judaism only, bringing with it no freedom or life, 
but leaving men still under the curse of sin and guilt. Law, 
however refined, always remains law, something over against 
the man, an outward shall, whose nature it is to exact, accuse, 
condemn, and kill. Spirit only and love can animate, and both 
spring only from personal life. By the all prevailing principle 
of love the law was fulfilled in Christ's life ; and now with the 
communication of Christ's spirit, the spirit and power of the 
same active obedience are received at the same time. Thus the 
law comes to be written in the heart, and loses its character of 
mere outward authority in that of a spontaneous impulse be- 
longing to the inmost life of its subject. Christianity has by 
fulfilling it taken it out of the way. To look upon Christianity 
itself then as being of the same nature, is not indeed wholly 
wrong, since it has its legal, judicial side, as related to the im- 
penitent sinner ; but it is to come short of the true depth of what 
is comprehended in the gospel. Freedom, redemption from the 
law, is the main thing. 

Again, Christianity is Redemption and Atonement / but in 
this view also, it has its last and deepest root in the unity of 
Christ with God. Judaism had no power to set men free in this 
way. Its salvation stood mainly in symbolical provisions, that 
could not take away sin itself or reach to the creation of a new 
spiritual life. This required the medium of an actual personality, 
entering freely into a communion of life with the subjects of 
redemption ; and could be reached, in an absolute perfect way, 
only where all that was to be abolished by this redemption on 
the one hand, and all that was to be produced from it positively 
on the other, might be found originally and completely abolished 
and actualized in this personality itself. Only one who is him- 
self morally free can impart freedom to others ; and he that is 
to set all free, must necessarily be sinlessly perfect and fully 

4* 



42 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



united with God. Such a life however, overflowing with bles- 
sedness and love, would include in its very nature, by its relation 
to humanity, the power of a universal redemption ; for it must 
communicate itself with necessity to others, whose sense of want 
would at the same time urge them to lay hold of it as their own, 
while its divine constitution rendered it impossible that its fulness 
could ever be in this way exhausted or impaired. But redemption, 
to be complete, demands atonement, pardon of sin and peace 
with God. Such reconciliation again can be effected only by 
one, in whose soul the love and grace of God are identical with 
the consciousness of life itself, and whose life appears in such 
palpable unity of blessedness with God, as to exert a sort of 
moral violence on men in drawing them into the same commu- 
nion. The original unity of Christ with the Father then, the 
being of God in his person, is the basis on which rests the 
atonement or restoration of union between man and God; and it 
is with good heed to the order of his words no doubt that the 
great apostle says : *' God was in Christ, reconciling the world 
unto himself," plainly intimating that the existence of God in 
Christ was and still is that which holds the first place as a cause, 
while the atonement flows from it as an effect. 

And so all besides in Christianity receives from this ground 
thought, or ground fact rather, its proper light and position. 
Here the Christian Theology and Anthropology come to their 
true termination and living conjunction; they are not left to de- 
vour each other, but find their completion in Christology. God 
appears in the fulness of his condescension and self-communi- 
cating love ; man in his highest form of dignity and grandeur. 
On both sides the revelation satisfies the deepest religious want 
of our nature, restores to the spiritual world its inward harmony, 
and solves the riddle of the universe. The miraculous also, 
with which the manifestation of the God-man is attended, be- 
comes natural and intelligible; since such an actual entrance of 
the divine into the life of the world, must necessarily involve 
the presence of higher powers and laws. The resurrection of 
Christ in particular, which has been from the first the grand 
prop of Christianity in its historical aspect, appears but as the 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



43 



natural and necessary consequence of the divine life which 
filled the constitution of his person ; while it forms besides, in 
virtue of the life bond that unites him with his people, the 
ground of the whole Christian Eschatology, as connected with 
the resurrection of believers. 

12. 

In the way of brief recapitulation, our view of the whole 
subject may be expressed as follows. 

That which forms the specific, distinctive character of Chris- 
tianity is not its doctrine nor its morality, nor even its power 
of redemption ; but the peculiar constitution and religious signi- 
ficance of its Founder, as uniting divinity and humanity, truly 
and perfectly, in his person. Doctrine, law and redemption rest 
on this as their basis. 

As doctrine Christianity addresses itself to the understanding 
of man, as law to his will ; in both cases, as something outward 
and mechanical, rather than as having power to produce a living 
piety. In the character of redemption, it reaches to the heart, 
and unfolds in much higher degree its true life-giving, dynamic 
nature ; but viewed only in this light it is still but imperfectly 
apprehended, as an inward state or mere matter of feeling. Its 
complete sense and full objective value are reached, only when 
all is referred to the person of Christ, in which God appears 
united with humanity, and which by its very constitution accord- 
ingly carries in it a reconciling, redeeming, quickening and en- 
lightening efhcacy. Thus apprehended, Christianity is in the 
fullest sense organic, in its nature. It reveals itself as a peculiar 
order of life in Christ, and from him as a personal centre it 
reaches forth towards man as a whole, in the way of true his- 
torical self-evolution, seeking to form the entire race into a 
glorious kingdom of God. From this centre all takes its full 
significance; doctrine becomes power; law is turned into life; 
redemption and reconciliation find a solid objective basis, on 
which tQ rest. The natural and the human, sanctified by union 



44 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



with the divine in Christ, are sanctified also for all who partake 
of his spirit and life. Christianity thus neither deifies the natural 
as such, nor yet opposes it as evil; but purifies and transfigures 
it, and restores it to its true divine destination. It is the religion 
of Humanity, in which the life of man as man is advanced to its 
full perfection and glory. 

In any case, the two highest conceptions of Christianity are 
those, by which it is made to be either the religion of redemption 
or the religion of the unity of God and humanity. These con- 
dition and complete each other. Redemption was possible only 
through this unity ; and the unity comes to its full significance 
only as it works redemption. The unity is inward, the redemp- 
tion goes abroad ; this last the heart of Christianity, the other 
its head and mind. The apprehension of Christianity as re- 
demption rests more on Paul's way of thinking, the apprehension 
of it as union with God on that rather which we find in John ; 
the first regards chiefly the hindrances to be overcome and is 
more practical, the last looks chiefly to the crowning end and is 
more mystical and speculative ; the first has to do most with 
faith and hope, the last with love. Inasmuch now however as 
redemption starts from the unity of Christ with God and leads 
to the union of mankind generally with him as its ultimate scope ; 
inasmuch as redemption must cease when there is no more sin, 
while the unity it restores, like the love on which it rests, can 
never fail ; inasmuch accordingly as redemption belongs more 
to time and the present state of the world, whilst union with 
God is something absolutely eternal, the end thus as it is the be- 
ginning, the alpha and omega of the whole process; we must 
hold this last to be the high all ruling constituent in the nature of 
Christianity. And so we say, putting all together, Christianity 
is that religion which in the person of its author has actualized 
in fact, what all other religions have struggled in vain to reach, 
the unity of man with God ; and which as the power of a new 
creation organically working from this centre, by doctrine and 
moral energy, by redemption and reconciliation, conducts men as 
individuals and as a race to their true destination, to full com- 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



45 



munion and union with God, whereby all life is sanctified and 
exalted into a higher order of existence. 

This view of Christianity is not absolutely new. We meet 
with it under a different form, in the older Mysticism, as ex- 
hibited in Germany during the middle ages. For this school 
also the union of God and man through the incarnation of the 
first and the deification of the second, forms the cardinal idea in 
the religion of Christ. In this, as well as in its whole treatment 
of Christianity, it shows a striking affinity with the modern 
speculative philosophy; except that what is the result in this last 
case of thought, reflection, criticism even, springs in the other 
from the force of deep, inward religious fervor, and of course 
carries on this account a different meaning. The general point 
of coincidence is found in this, that Mysticism also transfers the 
objective forces of religion into the spirit, and allows them thus 
to lose their proper reality. The historical transforms itself into 
the inward; Christ is not so much the outward Saviour who 
once lived in Palestine, as he is the Redeemer that still lives, 
with new birth, in every pious man ; his history is accommo- 
dated to the spiritual life of the believer himself, and this, the 
Christ within us, becomes the main thing, from which the out- 
ward also first receives its true significance. Here again how- 
ever we must distinguish carefully between two tendencies ; the 
properly pantheistic Mysticism, whose chief representative is 
Master Eckart, so highly lauded by the modern speculation, 
and the prevailingly theistic. In the view of the first, union 
with the divine nature is taken to be the product of thought, a 
point in the developement of consciousness ; Christ in the end 
is but the type of humanity, and his history only figure and al- 
legory ; he was the first who came to the sense of his sonship 
in the relation to God; by him we learn that we also partake of 
the same nature, and are in like manner sons of God. In the 
other case, the unity of Christ with God is regarded as the re- 
sult of a free act of self-communication on the part of God, 
conditioned by the moral character of Christ, who accordingly 
carries with him more weight as a historical prototype ; and so 



46 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY, 



also the union with God which is effected for men through Christ 
is of a far more decidedly moral nature. The first view resolves 
it mainly into the exercise of thinking; here it is reached by an 
essentially ethical or even ascetic process. There it is a matter 
of nature ; here, a matter of grace, made possible through the 
redeeming influence of Christ, by mortification and a new in- 
ward life. The pantheistic Mysticism is the pattern and pre- 
cursor of the modern speculation ; the theistic, on the other 
hand, by the inwardness and warmth of its religious life, pre- 
pared the way on one side for the Reformation. In the Refor- 
mation however, a new element came forward. The Mystics 
had more or less overlooked one thing, the dark point in human 
life, sin and the need of redemption and atonement. The con- 
sciousness of this was powerfully awakened in Luther, and 
wrought with vast effect in the work of the sixteenth century. 
Deliverance from the power of sin, and reconciliation with God, 
were now felt to be the main thing in Christianity ; and as re- 
demption in this form could not be accomplished by an ideal 
image, but only by a real person, the historical personality of 
Christ was clothed again with new authority and prominence. 
Thus was found once more the historico-ideal centre of Chris- 
tianity. Still however, on the part of the Reformers, principally 
under one view ; Christ as a real Redeemer and Mediator ; but 
not with proper regard to that quality of his nature, by which alone 
he has this character, his perfect unity with God, constituting 
him at the same time a historical prototype and pattern for hu- 
manity. This refers us back again to the fundamental idea ol 
the Mystics; but while we appropriate this in a more ripe and 
better digested sense we cannot consent to lose the true and 
genuine acquisition which was made by the Reformation. We 
have endeavoured accordingly to place the subject in such a form 
as may serve to combine what is right in both views, the more 
practical of the Reformation and the more speculative of the 
better Mystics. Christianity, we say, is by all means, essen- 
tially and primarily, the religion of unity with God in its Founder 
and union with God in believers; but all this in its right sense. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 47 

only when the conception is found to rest on the inalienable 
Christian idea of a personal God, and along with this the ele- 
ments of redemption and reconciliation, repentance and faith, 
knowledge and sanctification, are allowed to maintain their au- 
thority full and unimpaired, as dependent but still indispensable 
constituents of the new creation in Christ Jesus. 



0 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



57 ftojj l^avfpto^jy — 4 0 £%u>v lov vtbv, t%H l^v £co>^>.— -John. 

0ai/aT'co^f^ ^usr capxi, fwortow^sis 61 rtvsvfxati* — Peter. 

9 Eysvs Tfo u btixatos 'ASa^it sl$ rtvsvfxa fcoortotoup . — l O xo%%ti>[X£vo$ tu 
a;upc9, iv Tivsvfid fcyi'c.— — "Etftft. a£/ua Ttvfij^uai'txo^. — "Oi't ^ufX^ iajjihv tov 
CcbuaT'oj autfoi^s* 6apxb$ avtovi xai fx oGlttev avtov' — To fivo'tr^tov 
'tovfo [isya icftw. — Paul. 

To ysysvvfi^ihov ix *tov rtvevpa'tos, rtvEvpd Etftft. — 'Eyco si fit % avdcftatiis 
xai rj fcojj. — 4 0 tfpwycoy fiov 'trjv oap#a, xai rtlvcov fxov to aiy.a, e%u fcojjv 
alJaviov xai syco dvaotrfics avtbv fyj £6%dtY] r^spa. — ir Oti lyco §w, xai vfi£i$ 
ZvpEtfee. — Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE REFORMED OR CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S 

SUPPER. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

The Question of the Eucharist is one of the most impor- 
tant belonging to the history of religion. It may be regarded 
indeed as in some sense central to the whole Christian system. 
For Christianity is grounded in the living union of the believer 
with the person of Christ ; and this great fact is emphatically 
concentrated in the mystery of the Lord's Supper; which has 
always been clothed on this very account, to the consciousness 
of the Church, with a character of sanctity and solemnity, sur- 
passing that of any other Christian institution. 

The sacramental controversy of the sixteenth century then 
was no|mere war of words; much less the offspring of mere pre- 
judice, passion or blind self-will, as many in their fanatical 
superiority to the vast problem involved in it are ready to ima- 
gine. It belonged to the inmost sanctuary of theology, and was 
intertwined particularly with all the arteries of the Christian life. 
This was felt by the spiritual heroes of the Reformation. They 
had no right to overlook the question which was here thrown in 
their way, or to treat it as a question of small importance, whose 
claims might safely be postponed in favour of other interests, 
that might appear to be brought into jeopardy by its agitation. 
That this should seem so easy to much of our modern Protest- 
antism, serves only to show, what is shown also by many other 
facts, that much of our modern Protestantism has fallen away 
sadly from the theological earnestness and depth of the period 
to which we now refer. With the revival of a deeper theology, 
there cannot fail to be a revival of interest also, on the part of 
the Church, in the sacramental question ; as on the other hand 
there can be no surer sign than the want of such interest, in 
the case of any section of the Church at any given time, that 
its theology is without power and its piety infected with disease. 

On this question, it is well known, the Protestant world split, 
from the very beginning, into two great divisions, which have 
never come since to a true and full inward reconciliation. 



52 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Strangely enough however both sections of the Church have 
seriously receded, to no inconsiderable extent, from the ground 
on which they stood in the sixteenth century. This fact is most 
broadly and palpably apparent in the modern posture of the 
Lutheran Church, especially as known on this side of the Atlan- 
tic. All who have any knowledge whatever of history, are aware 
that the American Lutheran Church, in its reigning character, 
has entirely forsaken at this point the position originally occu- 
pied by the same communion in the old world. Not only indeed 
has the proper Lutheran position been surrendered in favour of 
the Reformed doctrine; but even this doctrine itself, as it stood 
in the beginning, has come to be looked upon as altogether too 
high toned in the same direction ; so that the very view which 
was denounced in the days of Joachim Westphal and Tilemann 
Uesshuss, as foul sacramentarian heresy, by which cities and na- 
tions were exposed to the fierce judgments of heaven, is now count- 
ed an extreme on precisely the opposite side, little better than the 
popish error of transubstantiation itself. But this falling away 
from the orthodoxy of the sixteenth century is not confined to 
the Lutheran Church. The view of the Eucharist now generally 
predominant in the Reformed Church also, involves a similar 
departure, not so broad indeed but equally material, from its pro- 
per original creed, as exhibited in its symbolical books. An 
unchurchly, rationalistic tendency, has been allowed to carry 
the Church gradually more and more off from the ground it occu- 
pied in the beginning, till its position is found to be at length, 
to a large extent, a new one altogether. 

In the nature of the case, this change must involve much 
more than the simple substitution of one theory of the Lord's 
Supper for another. The doctrine of the eucharistis intimately 
connected with all that is most deep and central in the Chris- 
tian system as a whole ; and it is not possible for it to undergo 
any material modification in any direction, without a correspond- 
ing modification at the same time of the theory and life of reli- 
gion at other points. If it be true then, that such a falling away 
from the eucharistic view of the sixteenth century, as is now 
asserted, has taken place in the Reformed Church, it is very 
certain that the revolution is not confined to this point. It 
must affect necessarily the whole view, that is entertained of 
Christ's person, the idea of the Church, and the doctrine of sal- 
vation throughout. Not that the change in the theory of the 
Lord's Supper may be considered the origin and cause, properly 
speaking, of any such general theological revolution ; but be- 
cause it could not occur, except as accompanied by this general 
revolution, of which it may be taken as the most significant 
exponent and measure. 



CALVINIST1C DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S STJPI'ER. 



53 



Under this view, the subject presents itself to us, as one of 
great interest and importance. The question involved in it, is 
not one of historical curiosity simply, the bearings of which 
in a religious view may be regarded as indifferent or of only 
slight account. It is a question of the utmost moment for 
theoiogy and religion, which at this time particularly no friend 
of our evangelical Protestant faith should consider himself at 
liberty to overlook.* 

To see and feel the truth of the assertion, that the modern 
popular view of the Lord's Supper is chargeable with a serious 
defection from the original Protestant orthodoxy at this point, it 
is only necessary to have some correct apprehension of what 
was actually believed and taught on the subject, by the Reformed 
Church as well as by the Lutheran, in the age of the Reforma- 
tion. This cannot fail of itself to reveal, in the way of contrast, 
the true posture of the Church at the present time. 

It is of course with the doctrine of the Reformed Church 
only, in the view now mentioned, as distinguished from the 
Lutheran, that the present inquiry is concerned. Our object is, 
to bring into view the theory of the Lord's Supper, as it stood 
in the general creed of this section of the Church in the sixteenth 
century. This requires, in the first place, a clear statement of 
the theory itself ; in the second place, proper evidence that it 
was in fact of such established authority in the period just named. 

* <£ The eighteenth century came, and the same processes which were used 
for shutting out the invisible in every other direction were applied also in this. 
And yet tens of thousands of men and women in every part of Europe, would 
in that day have rather parted with their lives, or with any thing more dear to 
them, than with this feast. And now, in this nineteenth century, there are not 
a few persons, who, meditating on these different experiments, have arrived at 
this deep and inward conviction, that the question whether Christianity shall 
be a practical principle and truth in the hearts of men, or shall be exchanged 
for a set of intellectual notions or generalizations, depends mainly on the 
question whether the Eucharist shall or shall not be acknowledged and 
received as the bond of a universal life, and the means whereby men. become 
partakers of it." Maurice's Kingdom of Christ. (London, 1842.) Vol. ii., 
p. 72. 



5* 



54 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION I. 

STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE. 

To obtain a proper view of the original doctrine of the Re- 
formed Church on the subject of the eucharist, we must have 
recourse particularly to Calvin. Not that he is to be considered 
the creator, properly speaking, of the doctrine. It grew evi- 
dently out of the general religious life of the church itself, in its 
antagonism to the Lutheran dogma on the one hand, and the 
low Socinian extreme on the other. Calvin however was the 
theological organ, by which it first came to that clear expression, 
under which it continued to be uttered subsequently in the sym- 
bolical books. His profound far-reaching and deeply penetrating 
mind drew forth the doctrine from the heart of the Church, ex- 
hibited it in its proper relations, proportions and distinctions, 
gave it form in this way for the understanding, and clothed it 
with authority as a settled article of faith in the general creed. 
He may be regarded then as the accredited interpreter and ex- 
pounder of the article, for all later times. A better interpreter 
in the case, we could not possibly possess. Happily, too, his 
instructions and explanations here are very full and explicit. 
He comes upon the subject from all sides, and handles it under 
all forms, didactically and controversially ; so that we are left in 
no uncertainty whatever, with regard to his meaning, at a single 
point. 

Any theory of the eucharist will be found to accord closely 
with the view that is taken, at the same time of the nature of the 
union generally between Christ and his people. Whatever the 
life of the believer may be as a whole in this relation, it must 
determine the form of his communion with the Saviour in' the 
sacrament of the Supper, as the central representation of its sig- 
nificance and power. Thus, the sacramental doctrine of the 
primitive Reformed Church stands inseparably connected with 
the idea of an inward living union between believers and Christ, 
in virtue of which they are incorporated into his very nature, 
and made to subsist with him by the power of a common life.* 

* Conjunctio igitur ilia capitis et membrorum, habitatio Christi in cordibus 
nostris, mystica denique unio a nobis in summo gradu statuitur ; ut Christus 
noster f actus, donorum, quibus prseditus est, nos faciat oonsortes. Non ergo 
extra nos procul speculamur, ut nobis imputetur ejus justitia : sed quia ipsum 
induimus, et insiti sumus in ejus corpus, unum denique nos secum efficere dig- 
natus est ; ideo justitiae societatem nobis curn eo esse gloriamur. Calvin. Inst. 
iii. 11, 10. 



CALVINTSTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



55 



In full correspondence with this conception of the Christian 
salvation, as a process by which the believer is mystically inserted 
more and more into the person of Christ, till he becomes thus 
at last fully transformed into his image, it was held that nothing 
less than such a real participation of his living person is involved 
always in the right use of the Lord's Supper. The following 
distinctions may serve to define and explain more fully, the 
nature of the communion which holds between Christ and his 
people, in the whole view now mentioned, as taught by Calvin 
and the Reformed Church generally, in the sixteenth century. 

1. The union of believers with Christ is not simply that of a 
common humanity, as derived from Adam. In this view, all 
men partake of one and the same nature, and each may be said 
to be in relation to his neighbour bone of his bone and flesh of 
his flesh. So Christ took not on him the nature of angels, but 
of men. He was born of a woman, and appeared among us in 
the likeness and fashion of our own life, only without sin. But 
plainly our relation to his nature, and through this to his medi- 
atorial work, as christians, is something quite different from this 
general consanguinity of the human race. Where we are said 
to be of the same life with him, " members of his body, of his 
flesh and of his bones," it is not on the ground merely of a joint 
participation with him in the nature of Adam, but on the ground 
of our participation in his own nature as a higher order of life. 
Our relation to him is not circuitous and collateral only ; it holds 
in a direct connection with his person.* 

2. In this view, the relation is more again than a simply moral 
union. Such a union we have, where two or more persons are 
bound together by inward agreement, sympathy, and correspond- 
ence. Every common friendship is of this sort. It is the relation 
of the disciple to the master, whom he loves and reveres. It is 
the relation of the devout Jew to Moses, his venerated lawgiver 
and prophet. It holds also undoubtedly between the believer and 
Christ. The Saviour lives much in his thoughts and affections. 
He looks to him with an eye of faith, embraces him in his heart, 
commits himself to his guidance, walks in his steps, and endea- 
vours to become clothed more and more with his very mind itself. 
In the end the correspondence will be found complete. We shall 

* Carnis et sanguinis communicationem non tantum interpretor de communi 
natura, quod Cristus homo faetus jure fraternae societatis nos Dei filic-s secum 
fecerit: sed distincte amrmo, quam a nobis sumpsit carnem, earn nobis esse 
vivificam, ut nobis sit materia spirituals vitae. Illamque Augustini sententiam 
libenter amplector, Sicut ex costa Adas creata f'uit Eva, sic ex Christi latere 
fluxisse nobis vitse originem et principium. Calvin, De Vera Partic. Opp. 
Tom. ix. (Amst. Ed.) p. 726. — Neque enim ossa sumus ex ossibus et caro ex 
carne, quia ipse nobiscum est homo ; sed quia Spiritus sui virtute nos in cor- 
pus suum inserit, ut vitam ex eo hauriamus. Id. Comm. on Eph. v. 30. 



56 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



be like him in all respects., one with him morally, in the fullest 
sense. But Christianity includes more than such a moral union, 
separately considered. This union itself is only the result here 
of a relation more inward and deep. It has its ground in the 
force of a common life, in virtue of which Christ and his people 
are one even before they become thus assimilated to his charac- 
ter. So in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; it is not simply 
a moral approach that the true worshipper is permitted to make 
to the glorious object of his worship. His communion with 
Christ does not consist merely in the good exercises of his own 
mind, the actings of faith, and contrition, and hope, and love, the 
solemn recollections, the devotional feelings, the pious resolu- 
tions, of which he may be himself the subject, during the sacra- 
mental service.* Nor is the sacrament a sign only, by which the 
memory and heart may be assisted in calling up what is past or 
absent, for the purposes of devotion; as the picture of a friend 
is suited to recal his image and revive our interest in his person, 
when he is no longer in our sight.f Nor is it a pledge simply of 
our own consecration to the service of Christ, or of the faithful- 
ness of God as engaged to make good to us in a general way the 
grace of the new covenant; as the rainbow serves still to ratify 
and confirm the promise given to Noah after the flood. J All this 
would bring with it in the end nothing more than a moral communi- 
cation with Christ, so far as the sacrament itself might be concerned. 
It could carry with it no virtue or force, more than might be put 
into it in every case by the spirit of the worshipper himself. Such 
however is not the nature of the ordinance. It is not simply an 
occasion, by which the soul of the believer may be excited to 
pious feelings and desires ; but it embodies the actual presence 

* Ubique resonant scripta mea, differ re manducationem a fide, quia sit fidei 
effectus. Non a triduo ita loqui inccepi, nos credendo manducare Christum, 
quia vere participes ejus facti in ejusc orpus coalescimus, lit nobis communis sit 
cum eo vita. . . . Quam turpe igitur Westphalo fuit, quum diserte verba mea 
sonent, manducare aliud esse quam credere ; quod ego fortiter nego, quasi a 
me profectum impudenter obtrudere lectoribus ! . . . Ejusdem farinas est 
quod mox attexit, edere corpus Christi tantundem valere, si verbis meis locus 
datur, quam promissionem fide recipere. Sed quomodo tarn flagitiose se pros- 
tituere audet ? Calvin. Adv. Westph. Opp. Tom. ix., p. 669. 

t lta panis non inanis est rei absentis pictura, sed verum ac fidele nostrae 
cum Christo unionis pignus. Dicet quispiam non aliter panis symbolo adum- 
brari corpus Christi, quam mortua statua Herculem vel Mercurium reprsesentat. 
Hoc certe commentam a doctrina nostra non minus remotum est, quam pro- 
fanum a sacro. Calvin. Opp. T. \x.,p. 667. — Christus neque pictor est, neque 
histrio, neque Archimides quispiam, qui inani tantum objecta imagine oculos 
pascat, sed vere et reipsa prcestat quod externo symbolo pr omit tit. Jb.p. 121. 

t Panis ita corpus signiflcat, ut vere, efficaciter, ac reipsa nos ad Christi 
communicationem invitet. Dicimus enim veritatem quam continet promissio, 
illic exhiberi, et effectum externo signo annexum esse. Tropus ergo signum 
minime evacuate sed potius ostendit quomodo non sit vacuum. Calv. Opp. 
T.ix. 9 p. 667. 



CALVINIST1C DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



57 



of the grace it represents in its own constitution ; and this grace 
is not simply the promise of God on which we are encouraged 
to rely, but the very life of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We 
communicate, in the Lord's supper, not with the divine promise 
merely, not with the thought of Christ only, not with the recol- 
lection simply of what he has done and suffered for us, not with 
the lively present sense alone of his all-sufficient, all-glorious sal- 
vation; but with the living Saviour himself, in the fulness of his 
glorified person, made present to us for the purpose by the power 
of the Holy Ghost. 

3. The relation of believers to Christ, then, is more again 
than that of a simply legal union. He is indeed the representa- 
tive of his people, and what he has done and suffered on their 
behalf is counted to their benefit, as though it had been done by 
themselves. They have an interest in his merits, a title to all 
the advantages secured by his life and death. But this external 
imputation rests at last on an inward, real unity of life, without 
which it could have no reason or force. Our interest in Christ's 
merits and benefits can be based only upon a previous interest 
in his person ; so in the Lord's Supper, we are made to partici- 
pate, not merely in the advantages secured by his mediatorial 
work, the rewards of his obedience, the fruits of his bitter pas- 
sion, the virtue of his atonement, and the power of his priestly 
intercession, but also in his true and proper life itself. We par- 
take of his merits and benefits only so far as we partake of his 
substance.* 

4. Of course, once more, the communion in question is not 
simply with Christ in his divine nature separately taken, or with 
the Holy Ghost as the representative of his presence in the world. 
It does not hold in the influences of the Spirit merely, enlight- 
ening the soul and moving it to holy affections and purposes. 
It is by the Spirit indeed we are united to Christ. Our new 
life is comprehended in the Spirit as its element and medium. 
But it is always bound in this element to the person of the Lord 
Jesus Christ himself. Our fellowship is with the Father and 
with his son Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost. As such it 

* Neque enim tantum dico applicari merita, sed ex ipso Christi corpore ali- 
mentum percipere animas, non secus ac terrene- pane corpus vescitur. Calu. 
Opp. T. ix., p. 668. — Sane non video, quomodo in cruce Christi redemptionem 
ac justitiam, in ejus morte vitam habere se quis confidat, nisi vera Christi ipsius 
communione imprimis fretus. Non enim ad nos bona ilia pervenirent, nisi se 
prius nostrum Christus faceret. Inst. iv. 17, 11. — Satis sit monuisse lectores, 
Christum ubique a me vocari Baptismi Coenacque substantiam. Opp. T. ix., p. 
671. — Plus centies occurrit in scriptis meis, adeo me non rejicere substantia 
nomen, ut libenter et ingenue profitear spiritualem vitam incomprehensibili 
Spiritus virtute ex carnis Christi substantia in nos diffundi. Ubique etiam 
admitto, substantial iter nos pasci Christi carne et sanguine; modo facessat 
crassum de locali permixtione commentum. Ib. p. 125. Substantialis com- 
municatio ubique a me asseritur. Ib. p. 73.2. 



58 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



is a real communion with the Word made flesh ; not simply 
with the divinity of Christ, but with his humanity also ; since 
both are inseparably joined together in his person, and a living 
union with him in the one view, implies necessarily a living 
union with him in the other view likewise. In the Lord's Sup- 
per, accordingly, the believer communicates not only with the 
Spirit of Christ, or with his divine nature, but with Christ him- 
self in his whole living person; so that he may be said to be fed 
and nourished by his very flesh and blood. The communion is 
truly and fully with the Man Christ Jesus, and not simply with 
Jesus as the Son of God. # 

These distinctions may serve to bound and define the Re- 
formed doctrine of the Eucharist on the side towards Rational- 
ism. All pains were taken to guard it from the false tendency 
to which it stood exposed in this direction. The several con- 
ceptions of the believer's union and communion with Christ 
which have now been mentioned, were explicitly and earnestly 
rejected, as being too low and poor altogether for the majesty of 
this great mystery. In opposition to all such representations, it 
was constantly affirmed that Christ's people are inserted by faith 
into his very life; and that the Lord's Supper, forming as it does 
an epitome of the whole mystery, involves to the worthy com- 
municant an actual participation in the substance of his person 
under this view. The participation is not simply in his Spirit, 
but in his flesh also and blood. It is not figurative merely and 
moral, but real, substantial and essential.^ 

But it is not enough to settle the boundaries of the doctrine 
on the side of Rationalism. To be understood properly, it must 
be limited and defined, in like manner, on the side of Ro- 
manism. 

1. In the first place then it excludes entirely the figment of 
transubstantiation. According to the Church of Rome, the ele- 

* Neque illi praeterea mihi satisfaciunt, qui nonnullam nobis esse cum 
Christo communionem agnoscentes, earn dum ostendere volunt, nos Spiritus 
rnodo participes faciunt, prceterita carnis et sanguinis mentione. Calvin. Inst. 
iv. 17, 7. — Christum corpore absentem doceo nihilominus non tantum Divina 
sua virtute, quae ubique diffusa est, nobis adesse, sed etiam facere ut nobis 
vivifica sit sua caro. . . . Neque simpliciter Spiritu suo Christum in nobis 
habitare trado, sed ita nos ad se attollere, ut vivificum carnis suae vigorem in 
nos transfundat. Opp. T. ix.,p. 669. — Hanc unitatem non ad essentiam divi. 
nam restringo, sed pertinere affirmo ad carnem et sanguinem: quia non sim- 
pliciter dictum sit, " Spiritus meus vere est cibus," sed caro ; nec simpliciter 
etiam dictum sit <f Divinitas mea vere est potus," sed sanguis. Ib. p. 726. 
Fatemur ergo corpus idem quod crucih'xum est, -nos in Coenaedere. Ib.p. 727. 
— Augustino assentior, in pane accipi quod pependit in cruce. Ib. p. 729. 

t Convenit etiam Christum re ipsa et efficaciter implere quicquid analogia 
signi et rei signatae postulat ; ideoque vere nobis in Coena oflerri communica- 
tionem cum ejus corpore et sanguine, vel (qod idem valet,) nobis arrham sub 
pane et vino proponi, quae nos faciat corporis et sanguinis Christi participes. 
Calv. Opp. T. ix.,p. 743. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



59 



ments of bread and wine in the sacrament are literally trans- 
muted into the actual flesh and blood of Christ. The accidents, 
outward properties, sensible qualities only, remain the same ; 
while the original substance is converted supernaturally into the 
true body of the glorified Saviour, which is thus exhibited and 
received in an outward way in the sacramental, mystery. This 
transmutation too is not limited to the actual solemnity of the 
sacramental act itself, but is held to be of permanent force; so 
that the elements continue afterwards to be the true body of 
Christ, and are proper objects of veneration and worship accord- 
ingly. This theory was rejected as a gross superstition, even by 
the Lutheran Church, and of course found still less favor in the 
other section of the Protestant communion. The Reformed 
doctrine admits no change whatever in the elements. Bread re- 
mains bread, and wine remains wine. 

2. The doctrine excludes, in the second place, the proper Lu- 
theran hypothesis of the sacrament, technically distinguished by 
the title consubstantiation. According to this view, the body 
and blood of Christ are not actually substituted supernaturally 
for the elements ; the bread and wine remain unchanged, in 
their essence as well as in their properties. But still the body 
and blood of Christ are in their very substance 'present, where 
the supper is administered. The presence is not indeed bound 
to the elements, apart from their sacramental use. It holds only 
in the moment and form of this use as such; a mystery in this 
respect, transcending all the common laws of reason and nature. 
It is however a true, corporal presence of the blessed Saviour. 
Hence his body is received by the worshipper orally, though 
not in the form and under the quality of common food; and so 
not by believers simply, but by unbelievers also, to their own 
condemnation. The dogma was allowed in the end to involve 
also, by necessary consequence, the ubiquity of Christ's glorified 
body. Bread and wine retain their own nature, but Christ, who 
is in virtue of the communicatio idiomatum present in his human 
nature in all places where he may please to be, imparts his true 
flesh and blood, in, with and under the outward signs to all com- 
municants, whether with or without faith, by the inherent power 
of the ordinance itself.* 

* Oedimus, docemus et confitemur, quod in Coena Domini corpus et sanguis 
Christi vere et substantialiter sint praesenlia, et quod una cum pane et vino 
vere distribuantur atque sumantur. — Credimus, corpus et sanguinem Christi 
non tantum spiritualiter per fidem, sed etiam ore, non tamen Capernaitice, sed 
supernaturali et coelesti modo, ratione sacramentalis unionis,cum paneetvino 
sumi.- — Credimus, quod non tantum vere in Christum credentes, et qui digne 
ad Coenam Domini accedunt, verum etiam indigni et infideles verum corpus et 
sanguinem Christi sumant. Form, Cone. Art. vii. Hose, Lib. Symbol, p. 599, 
600. 



60 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



In opposition to this view, the Reformed Church taught that 
the participation of Christ's flesh and blood in the Lord's Supper 
is spiritual only, and in no sense corporal. The idea of a local 
presence in the case, was utterly rejected. The elements can- 
not be said to comprehend or include the body of the Saviour 
in any sense. It is not there, but remains constantly in heaven, 
according to the scriptures. It is not handled by the minister 
and taken into the mouth of the communicant. The manduca- 
tion of it is not oral, but only by faith. It is present in fruition 
accordingly to believers only in the exercise of faith ; the im- 
penitent and unbelieving receive only the naked symbols, bread 
and wine, without any spiritual advantage to their own souls.* 

Thus we have the doctrine defined and circumscribed on 
both sides ; with proper distinction from all that may be consi- 
dered a tendency to Rationalism in one direction, and from all 
that may be counted a tendency to Romanism in the other. It 
allows the presence of Christ's person in the sacrament, includ- 
ing even his flesh and blood, so far as the actual participation of 
the believer is concerned. Even the term real presence, Calvin 
tells us he was willing to employ, if it were to be understood as 
synonymous with true presence; by which he means a presence 
that brings Christ truly into communion with the believer in his 
human nature, as well as in his divine nature.f The word real, 
however, was understood ordinarily to denote a local, corporal 
presence, and on this account was not approved. To guard 
against this, it may be qualified by the word spiritual; and the 
expression will then be quite suitable to the nature of the doc- 

* Ego Christum in coelesti sua sede relinquens, arcana spiritus ejus influentia 
contentus sum, ut nos came sua pascat. — Neque enim aliter Christum in Coena 
statuo praesentem, nisi quia fidelium mentes, sicuti ilia est ccelestis actio, fide 
supra mundum evehuntur, et Christus Spiritus sui virtute obstaculum, quod 
afferre poterat loci distantia, tollens, se membris suis conjungit. — Hsec nostra 
definitio est, spiritualiter a nobis manducari Christi carnem, quia non aliter 
animas vivificat, quam pane vegetatur corpus; tantum a nobis excluditur sub- 
stantias transfusio. Westphalo non aliter caro vinifica est, quam si ejus sub- 
stantia voretur. Hoc crimen est nostrum, obviis ulnis tale monstrum non 
amplecti. Calv. Opp. T. ix. p. 668, 669. 

t Communicari nobis Christi corpus et sanguinem, nullus nostrum negat. 
Qualis autem sit corporis et sanguinis Domini communicatio, quaBritur. Car- 
nalem isti palam et simpliciter asserere quomodo audeant, miror. Spiritua- 
lem cum dicimus, fremunt, quasi hac voce realem, ut vulgo loquuntur, tolla- 
mus. Nos vero, si reale pro vero accipiant, et fallaci vel imaginario oppo- 
nant, barbare loqui mallemus, quam pugnis materiam praebere. . . . Placidis 
et moderatis hoc testatum volo, ita secundum nos spiritualem esse communi- 
cationis modum, ut reipsa Christo fruamur. Hac modo ratione contenti 
simus, ultra quam nemo nisi valde litigiosus insurget, vivificam nobis est 
Christi carnem, quia ex ea spiritualem in animas nostras vita.m Christus in- 
stillat; earn quoque a nobis manducari, dum in corpus unum fide cum Christo 
coalescimus, ut noster factus nobiscum sua omnia communicet. Calv. Opp. T. 
ix. p. 657, 658. — Praesentiam carnis Christi in Coena urget Westphalus : nos 
simpliciter non negamus, modo nobiscum fide stirsum conscendat. Ib, p, 668, 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LOKd's SUPrER. 



61 



trine, as it has been now explained. A real presence, in opposi- 
tion to the notion that Christ's flesh and blood are not made 
present to the communicant in any way. A spiritual real pre- 
sence, in opposition to the idea that Christ's body is in the ele- 
ments in a local or corporal manner. Not real simply, and not 
spiritual simply; but real, and yet spiritual at the same time. 
The body of Christ is in heaven, the believer on earth; but by 
the power of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless, the obstacle of such 
vast local distance is fully overcome, so that in the sacramental 
act, while the outward symbols are received in an outward way, 
the very body and blood of Christ are at the same time inwardly 
and supernaturally communicated to the worthy receiver, for the 
real nourishment of his new life. Not that the material particles 
of Christ's body are supposed to be carried over, by this super- 
natural process, into the believer's person.* The communion 
is spiritual, not material. It is a participation of the Saviour's 
life. Of his life, however, as human, subsisting in a true bodily 
form. The living energy, the vivific virtue, as Calvin styles it, 
of Christ's flesh, is made to flow over into the communicant, 
making him more and more one with Christ himself, and thus 
more and more an heir of the same immortality that is brought 
to light in his person. 

Two points in particular, in the theory now exhibited, require 
to be held clearly in view. 

The first is, that the sacrament is made to carry with it an ob- 
jective force, so far as its pr incipal design is 'concerned. It is not 
simply suggestive, commemorative, or representational. It is not 
a sign, a picture, deriving its significance from the mind of the 
beholder. The virtue which it possesses is not put into it by 
the faith of the worshipper in the first place, to be taken out of 
it again by the same faith, in the same form. It is not imagined 
of course in the case that the ordinance can have any virtue 
without faith, that it can confer grace in a purely mechanical 
way. All thought of the opus operation, in this sense, is utterly 
repudiated. Still faith does not properly clothe the sacrament 
with its power. It is the condition of its efficacy for the com- 
municant, but not the principle of the power itself. This be- 
longs to the institution in its own nature. The signs are bound 
to what they represent, not subjectively simply in the thought of 
the worshipper, but objectively, by the force of a divine appoint- 
ment. The union indeed is not natural but sacramental. The 

* Ingenue interea confiteor, mixturam carnis Christi cum anima nostra, vel 
transfusionem, qualis ab ipsis docetur, me repudiare ; quia nobis sufficit, 
Christum e carnis suoe substantia vitam in animas nostras spirare, imo pro- 
priam in nos vitam diffundere, quamvis in nos non ingrediatur ipsa Christi 
caro. Calv. Inst, iv. 17, 32. — Manet tamen integer homo Christus in coelo. 
Id. Opp. T. ix., p. 699. 

0 



62 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



grace is not comprehended in the elements, as its depository and 
vehicle outwardly considered. But the union is none the less 
real and firm, on this account. The grace goes inseparably along 
with the signs, and is truly present for all who are prepared to 
make it their own. The signs in this view are also seals; not 
simply as they attest the truth and reality of the grace in a gen- 
eral way, but as they authenticate also its presence under the 
sacramental exhibition itself. This is what we mean by the 
objective force of the institution ; and this, we say, is one point 
that must always be kept in view, in looking at the doctrine that 
is now the subject of our attention.* 

The other point to be steadily kept in sight is, that the invisi- 
ble grace of the sacrament, according to the doctrine, is the sub- 
stantial life of the Saviour himself, particularly in his human 
nature. He became flesh for the life of the world, and our com- 
munion with him, involves a real participation in him as the 
principle of life under this form. Hence in the mystery of the 
Supper, his flesh and blood are really exhibited always in their 
essential force and power, and really received by every worthy 
communicant. 

Such is the proper sacramental doctrine of the Reformed 
Church as it stood in the Sixteenth century. It is easy to show 
that it labours under serious difficulties. With these however at 
present, we have no concern. They can have no bearing one 
way or another, upon the simply historical inquiry in which we 
are now engaged. My object has been thus far only to describe 
and define the doctrine itself. It lemains now to show, that it 
was in fact, as thus described and defined, the accredited estab- 
lished doctrine of the Reformed Church, in the period to which 
the inquiry refers. 

* Obtendit (Westphalus) verbo fieri sacramentum, non fide nostra. Hoc ut 
concedam, nondum tamen obtinet promiscue Christum canibus et porcis ita 
prostitui, ut carne ejus vescantur. Neque enim desinit e ccelo pluere Deus, 
licet pluvioe liquorem saxa et rupes non concipiant. Calv. Opp. T. ix., p. 674. 
— Nos ita asserimus, omnibus ofFerri in sacramento Christi corpus et sanguinem, 
ut soli fideles insestimabili hoc thesauro fruantui : elsi autem incredulitas 
januam Christo claudit, ut priventur ejus beneficio qui ad Ccenam impure acce- 
dunt, negamus tamen quicquam decedere ex sacramenti natura ; quia panis 
semper verum est pignus cam is Christi, et vinum sanguinis, veraque utriusque 
exhibitio semper constat ex parte Dei. Adversarii nostri corpus et sanguinem 
ita sub pane et vino includunt, ut sine ulla fide vorentur ab impiis. Ib. p. 699. 



CALVINIST1C DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



G3 



SECTION II. 

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

The Reformed Church, as distinguished from the Lutheran, 
cannot be said to have taken its rise in the person of any single 
man, or in the religious life of any particular country, separately 
considered. The great Protestant movement revealed itself from 
the beginning, under this general form, in different countries, 
independently of all merely outward historical connection. At 
the same time, the characteristic differences of doctrine between 
the two confessions were not clearly and fully developed from 
the start, on either side. The difference was felt, and in a cer- 
tain way also expressed. But time was needed to carry it out to 
its last, satisfactory, logical statement, for the understanding. 
Thus the Lutheran system, after years of controversy, appears 
fairly developed, under all its true and necessary distinctions, 
only in the Form of Concord, framed towards the close of the 
century. And thus also in the same way, the sacramental dogma 
of the Reformed Church can be understood fairly, not from the 
form in which it may be found exhibited at the outset of the con- 
troversy, but only from the terms in which we find it stated at a 
later period, after its true substance and contents had come to 
be properly apprehended and denned at every point, with proper 
antithesis to all the errors with which it was felt to be sur- 
rounded. 

It is not necessary then that we should trouble ourselves 
much, in the present inquiry, about the opinions of Zuingli, or 
Occolanipadius, or of the Swiss Reformed Church generally in 
their day on the subject of the Lord's Supper. The Reformed 
Church, as a whole, is not historically derived from Switzerland, 
in any such sense that it could ever be said to be bound legiti- 
mately in its faith by the theological views of that country, in the 
precise form in which they were held and published at the birth 
of the Reformation. Much less may it be imagined that any 
such obligation has existed, as it regards the authority of the 
great Reformer of Zurich in a separate view. With all his 
merits, entitling him as they do to the respect of the Protes- 
tant world through all ages, the relation of Zuingli to the 
proper life of the Reformed Church, must be allowed to have 
been exceedingly external and accidental. This appears in the 
fact, that he has left behind him no work, which has ever been 



64 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



held to be of symbolical force for any portion of the Church. 
In such circumstances, we are not at liberty of course to appeal 
to his authority, if it had been ever so clearly expressed, in the 
case before us, as carrying with it any decisive weight.* And 
just as little can we consider any judgment conclusive, which it 
may be attempted to derive from the Helvetic Church generally, 
in the first years of its history. Its views, in the nature of the 
case, were more or less, chaotic and contradictory. Theological 
investigation, and much exercise in the way of controversy, 
were still required to give them proper shape and form. This 
work was accomplished gradually with the onward course of 
history, and became complete especially, about the middle of the 
century, through the instrumentality of that vast mind, which for 
years served the whole Reformed Church as its central organ, in 
the city of Geneva. 

To learn the true character, then, of the eucharistic doctrine 
of the Reformed Church in the sixteenth century, we must have 
recourse to the time when the doctrine had become properly 
defined and settled in the Church itself. The representations 
of this period are not to be ruled and interpreted by statements 
drawn from an earlier day, but on the contrary, these earlier 

* The view of Zuingli, with regard to the Lord's Supper, is not always 
consistent with itself. At times, he appears to take the proper ground, as 
afterwards more clearly established in the Reformed Church ; and it may well 
be doubted whether he could have been deliberately satisfied at all with the 
poor, bald conception, which is too often made to pass under the authority of 
his name at the present time. Still it must be confessed, that his theory of 
the sacraments, altogether, was quite too low, as compared with the doctrine 
of Calvin for instance, or the Heidelberg Catechism ; and in some cases he 
allows himself to speak of them in a way that sounds perfectly rationalistic. 
He tells us indeed : 44 Verum Christi corpus credimus in Ccena sacramentaliter 
et spiritualiter edi, a religiosa, fideli et sancta mente ;" but in the same con- 
nection resolves all into the most common moral influence. For the sacra- 
ments have their value and efficacy, he says, in this ; that they are venerable 
institutions of Christ — that they are testimony to great facts — that they are 
made to stand for the things they represent and to bear their names — that these 
things are of vast worth, and reflect their own value on their signs, as a queen's 
wedding-ring, for instance, is more than all her other rings, however precious 
besides — that there is an analogy or resemblance between the signs and the 
things they signify — that they serve as sensible helps to our faith — and that they 
have, finally, the Force of an oath. See his Clara Expos. Fidei, addressed to 
the King of France shortly before his death, and published afterwards in the 
year 1536 : quoted by Hospinian, ii., p. 239-241. S( Credo, omnia sacramenta 
tarn abesse, ut gratiam confer ant, ut ne offerant quidem aut dispensent." Ad. 
Car. Imp. Fidei Ratio. " Sunt sacramenta signa vel ceremoniae — quibus se 
homo ecclesice probat aut eandidatum aut militem esse Christi, redduntque 
ecclesiam totam potius certiorem de tua fide, quam te." De Veraet Falsa Rcl. 
This is low enough, certainly, and in full contradiction to the true Reformed 
doctrine. Calvin went so far as to call it profane. See quotation from a letter 
to Viret, in Henry's Leben J. Calvin's, vol. i., p. 271 : Nunquam ejus (Zuin- 
glii) omnia legi. Fortassis sub finem vitie retractavit et correxit, qua3 pri- 
mum invito exciderant. Sed in scriptis prioribus memini, quam prof ana sit 
ejus de sacramentis sententia. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LOU»'s SUPPER. 



65 



statements, springing as they do from a comparatively rudimental 
state of Protestant theology, must be of right interpreted and 
ruled by the form in which the doctrine is made to appear after- 
wards, when the same theology had become more complete. 
This later form of the doctrine moreover, as developed and en- 
forced especially by Calvin, is the same which it is found to 
cany in the symbolical books of the Church generally, and in 
this view again must be regarded of course as of paramount and 
exclusive authority in the present inquiry. 

In what is now said, however, it is not intended to allow that 
the doctrine of the Reformed Church on the subject of the sacra- 
ment was essentially different at the start from what it came to 
be afterwards. The doctrine we suppose to have been substan- 
tially the same, in the consciousness of the Church, from the 
beginning. Calvin did not bring in a new faith at this point, to 
supplant that which had previously prevailed. He simply con- 
tributed to the right understanding, and full enunciation of the 
faith which was already at hand. It may be admitted that this 
had been held with some measure of confusion. It is difficult 
to say what Zuingli believed. Probably his view was by no 
means clear and fixed to his own mind. Uncertainty and con- 
tradiction too appear in the Helvetic creed, to some extent, after 
his death. But it is still sufficiently plain, that the creed itself 
was felt to include something more than the conception of a 
merely symbolical force in the sacrament. We see in it always 
an internal demand at least for a higher form of expression, such 
as the doctrine was brought subsequently to assume, through the 
influence mainly of Calvin. 

Early Helvetic Church. 

Thus with all their opposition to Luther's idea of a bodily 
presence, the old Helvetic divines teach clearly that the sacra- 
ments carry with them an objective force. The signs are held 
to exhibit in fact what they represent. And this, in the case of 
the Lord's Supper, is such a participation on the part of the 
soul in Christ, as involves a real connection with the power of 
his whole life, by which believers may be said to be nourished 
with his very body and blood. A view altogether, which is 
much higher certainly than that commonly entertained in our 
own time, by those who pretend to agree here with the faith of 
the original Swiss Church. 

In illustration and proof of what is now said, I may refer even 
to what is styled the First Confession of Basel; published Janu- 
ary, 1534, in compliance with Bucer's request ; to show the 
world that the Swiss were not fairly liable to the reproach of 

6* 



66 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



" having the Supper without Christ." It is supposed to have 
been the production originally of Oecolampadius, revised and 
improved by his successor Oswald Myconius. On the subject 
of the Lord's Supper, Art. VI. (Hospinian , Hist. Sacram. Pars 
Altera, p. 221,) it uses the following language: 

" In the Lord's Supper, (in which with the bread and wine of the 
Lord are represented and offered to us by the minister of the church the 
true body and blood of Christ,) bread and wine remain unchanged. 
We firmly believe, however, that Christ himself [ipsummet Chris- 
tum] is the food of believing souls unto eternal life ; and that our 
souls, by true faith upon Christ crucified, are made to eat and drink 
the flesh and blood of Christ; so that we, members of his body as of 
our only head, live in him, as he also lives in us ; whereby we shall 
at the last day, by him and in him, rise to everlasting joy and bless- 
edness." 

The strength of this language, it must be added, is in some 
measure reduced by two or three brief qualifying explanations 
thrown into the margin ; by which we are reminded that it is 
the soul only that is thus fed and nourished, in a spiritual way, 
by the apprehension of Christ, and that the true, natural and 
substantial body of the Saviour is in no sense included in the 
ordinance. The whole representation too is considerably am- 
biguous, as compared with the statements of a later time. But 
still it shows the sense of something deeper in the doctrine, than 
could well be made intelligible by words. The elements are 
more than signs simply and outward pledges. They offer what 
they signify ; and this is, in some way, a real communication 
with the human Christ. 

More distinct and full, in this view, in some respects, is the 
Second Confession of Basel, more commonly known as the First 
Helvetic, It was framed by Bulling er, Myconius, and Grynaeus, 
A. D. 1536, under the appointment of an ecclesiastical conven- 
tion, which had assembled in the name of the different Protestant 
cantons at Basel for this purpose ; by whose authority also it was 
afterwards ratified and made public. On the subject of the sacra- 
ments, it speaks thus : 

" The signs called sacraments are two, namely baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. These sacraments are expressive holy signs of high 
secret things ; not however naked and empty signs ; but they consist 
of signs and real things. For in baptism the water is the sign, but 
the thing itself is regeneration and adoption into the family of God. 
In the Lord's Supper or eucharist the bread and wine are the signs, 
but the spiritual realities are the communion of the body and blood of 
Christ, the salvation procured on the cross and the forgiveness of sins. 
These real spiritual things are received by faith, as the signs are in a 
bodily way." Art. 20. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 67 



Here we are taught expressly, that the sacraments are not 
simply signs, nor yet pledges merely, of a grace in no way bound 
to their particular constitution. But they consist of real things 
as well as signs. There is an actual exhibition of these real things 
in the ordinances themselves. They are there independently of 
all thought or feeling on the part of the worshipper ; although, of 
course, they can become his only by faith. Thus baptism is de- 
scribed, in the next article, as the " laver of regeneration, which 
the Lord extends, by a visible sign, to his elect, through the min- 
istry of the church." And then of the Lord's Supper, it is said 
again : 

" Concerning the mystical Supper we thus judge, that the Lord in 
it truly offers to his people his own body and blood, that is him- 
self, to the end that he may live more and more in them, and they in 
him. Not that the body and blood of the Lord are naturally united 
with the bread and wine, or locally included in them, or are made car- 
nally present in anyway; but that the bread and wine are, by divine 
appointment, symbols under which, by the Lord himself, through the 
ministry of the church, the true communication of his body and blood is 
exhibited, not as perishable food for the belly, but as the aliment of 
eternal life." Art. 23. (Niemeyer's Col. Conf. p. 112.) 

This Confession was afterwards submitted to the examination 
of Luther, by Bucer and Capito, on the occasion of the meeting 
held at Wittemberg the same year, through the agency of the 
Strasburg divines, for the purpose of effecting, if possible, a re- 
conciliation between the two confessions ; the result of which 
was the celebrated Wittemberg Concord, Strange to tell, Luther 
pronounced the Confession orthodox; although it contradicts 
palpably his own system, and falls short even of the full force of 
the Reformed doctrine, as afterwards more clearly and success- 
fully stated. 

Calvin. 

To gain a full view of the doctrine, as already intimated, we 
must have recourse especially to Calvin. No authority in the 
case can be entitled to greater respect. He was emphatically 
the great theologian of his age. On this point, moreover, he is 
clearly the organ and interpreter of the mind of the church, in 
whose bosom he stood: It will not do to speak of his view of 
the Lord's supper as the private fancy only of a single man. If 
there be any point clear in the history of the time, it is that the 
doctrine exhibited by Calvin on this subject is to be regarded as 
the same, in all substantial points, that was recognized in the 
end as of general symbolical authority, throughout the whole 
Reformed Church, in the sixteenth century. 



63 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



It is not necessary to bring forward quotations in detail, for 
the purpose of showing the true character of the view he held, 
or its correspondence with the doctrine which has been already 
described, as the true and proper doctrine of the Reformed Church 
in the beginning of its history. That description has been in fact 
taken mainly from Calvin himself, and is supported accordingly by 
references to his writings at every point already. The difficulty 
here is, -not to find proofs and illustrations, but to make choice 
among the multitude that are presented. Calvin has written 
much on the Lord's Supper ; and he is always clear, always con- 
sistent, always true to himself. Over and over again, in all forms 
of expression and explanation, he tells us, that Christ's body is 
indeed locally in heaven only, and in no sense included in the 
elements ; that he can be apprehended by faith only, and not at 
all by the hands or lips ; that nothing is to be imagined like a 
transfusion or intromission of the particles of his body, mate- 
rially considered, into our persons. And yet that our commu- 
nion with him, notwithstanding, by the power of the Holy 
Ghost, involves a real participation — not in his doctrine merely 
— not in his promises merely — not in the sensible manifestations 
of his love merely — not in his righteousness and merit merely — 
not in the gifts and endowments of his Spirit merely ; but in his 
own true substantial life itself; and this not as comprehended in 
his divine nature merely, but most immediately and peculiarly as 
embodied in his humanity itself, for us men and our salvation. . 
The Word became flesh, according to this view, for the purpose 
not simply of effecting a salvation that might bepome available 
for men in an outward way, but to open a fountain of life in our 
nature itself, that might thenceforward continue to flow over to 
other men, as a vivific stream, to the end of time. The flesh of 
Christ, then, or his humanity, forms the medium, and the only 
medium, by which it is possible for us to be inserted into his life. 
To have part in him at all, we must be joined to him in the flesh ; 
and this not by the bond of our common relationship to Adam, 
but by the force of a direct implantation through the Spirit, into 
the person of Christ himself. 

" That Christ is the bread of life," he says in his Institutes IV. 17, 5, 
" by which believers are nourished to eternal salvation, there is no man, 
not entirely destitute of religion, who hesitates to acknowledge ; though 
all are not equally agreed respecting the manner of partaking of him. 
For there are some who define in a word, that to eat the flesh of Christ 
and to drink his blood, is no other than to believe in Christ himself. 
But I conceive that in that remarkable discourse in which Christ re- 
commends us to feed upon his body, he intended to teach us some- 
thing more striking and sublime ; namely that we are quickened by a 
real participation of him, which he designates by the terms of eating 
and drinking, that no person might suppose the life which we receive 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SLFPER. 



69 



from him to consist in simple knowledge. For as it is not seeing 
bread, but eating it, that administers nourishment to the body, so it is 
necessary for the soul to have a true and complete participation of 
Christ, that by his power it may be quickened into spiritual life. At 
the same time, we confess that there is no other eating than by faith, 
as it is impossible to imagine any other ; but the difference between 
me and those whose opinion I now oppose is this. They consider 
eating to be the same thing as believing ; while I say, that in believ- 
ing we eat the flesh of Christ, because he is made ours actually by 
faith, and that this eating is the fruit and effect of faith. Or to ex- 
press it more plainly, they consider the eating to be faith itself ; but 
I apprehend it to be rather a consequence of faith." 

Again, (IV. 17. 8,) he tells us that Christ was from the beginning 
that life giving Word of the Father, from which all things have de- 
rived their existence. " In him was life," the source and fountain of 
all creaturely existence, even before he appeared in our nature. But 
this 44 life was manifested," when he assumed our flesh, to restore the 
ruin produced by the fall. " For though he diffused his influence 
over the whole creation before that period, yet because man was 
alienated from God by sin, had lost the participation of life, and saw 
on every side nothing but impending death, it was necessary to his 
recovery of any hope of immortality, that he should be received into 
the communion of that Word. For what confidence can it raise in 
any one, to hear only that the fulness of life is comprehended in the 
Word of God, a great way off, whilst in himself and all around 
nothing but death is presented to his eyes! Now, however, since 
that fountain of life has come to dwell in our flesh, it is no longer 
thus hidden from us by distance, but open to our reach and free use. 
The very flesh moreover in which he dwells is made to be vivific for 
us, that we may be nourished by it to immortality. 4 1 am the living 
bread,' he says, 4 which came down from heaven ; and the bread that 
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' 
(John 6 : 48, 51.) In these words he teaches, not simply that he is 
Life, as the everlasting Word descending to us from heaven, but that 
in thus descending he has infused this virtue also into the flesh with 
which he clothed himself, in order that life might flow over to us from 
it continually." 

Again, sect. 10 : 44 We conclude that our souls are fed by the flesh 
and blood of Christ, just as our corporeal life is preserved and sus- 
tained by bread and wine. For the analogy of the sign would not 
hold, if our souls did not find their aliment in Christ; which howeveT 
cannot be the case, unless Christ truly coalesce into one with us, and 
support us through the use of his flesh and blood. It may seem in- 
credible indeed that the flesh of Christ should reach us from such 
immense local distance, so as to become our food. But we must re- 
member how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit transcends all 
our senses, and what folly it must ever be to think cf reducing his 
immensity to our measure. Let faith embrace then what the under- 
standing cannot grasp, namely that the Spirit unites things which are 
locally separated. Now this sacred communication of his flesh and 
blood, by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if he pene- 
trated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals also in the holy 



70 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



supper; not by the exhibition of a vain and empty sign, but by putting 
forth there such an energy of his Spirit as fulfils what he promises. 
What is thus attested he offers and exhibits to all who approach the 
spiritual banquet. It is however fruitfully received by believers only, 
who accept such vast grace with inward gratitude and trust." 

The following passage, sect. 11, is entitled to particular atten- 
tion, as bringing strongly into view some of the leading points 
of the doctrine, in a way not to be misunderstood or contradicted. 

" I say then, (what has always been held in the church, and is 
still taught by all of sound feeling,) that the sacred mystery of thf 
Supper consists of two parts; the corporeal signs, which being place( 
before our eyes represent to us invisible things according to the in 
firmity of our apprehension ; and the spiritual truth, which these sym 
bols typify and exhibit. This last I am accustomed to describe in r 
familiar way, as including three things ; the signification, the matte 
answering to this, and the virtue or effect which follows from both 
The signification holds in the promises, which are in some sense inter 
woven with the sign. What I call the mattter or substance, is Christ 
with his death and resurrection. By the efftct I mean redemptior 
righteousness, sanctification, eternal life, and all the other benefit 
which Christ confers upon us. Moreover, though all these thing 
have a relation to faith, I allow no room for the cavil, that, in reprc 
senting Christ to be received by faith, I make him an object simpl 
of the understanding or imagination. For the promises present Mi 
to us, not that we may rest in contemplation merely and nake 
notion, but that we may enjoy him in the way of real participatio 
And truly, I see not how any one can have confidence, that he h 
redemption and righteousness by the cross of Christ, and life by h 
death, if he have not in the first place a true communion with Chr; 
himself. For those benefits could never reach us if Christ did n 
first make himself ours. I say, then, that in the mystery of the Su t 
per, under the symbols of bread and wine, Christ is truly present . 
to us, and so his body and blood, in which he fulfilled all obedience 
to procure our justification ; in order that we may first coalesce with 
him into one body, and then, being thus made partakers of his sub- 
stance, may experience the virtue also which belongs to him, in the 
participation of all blessings." 

The Catechism of Geneva was formed by Calvin in the year 
1536, (enlarged and improved in 1541,) for the use of the 
Church whose name it bears. Take from it the following ex- 
tract on the subject of the Lord's Supper : 

Quest. Why is the Lord's body figured by bread and his blood by 

wine ? 

Ans. To teach us, that such virtue as bread has in nourishing our 
bodies for the support of the present life, the same is in the body of 
the Lord for the spiritual nourishment of our souls ; and that as by 
wine the hearts of men are exhilarated, their strength refreshed, the 
whole man invigorated, so our souls receive like benefits from the 
Lord's blood. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



71 



t Q. Do we then eat the body and blood of the Lord 1 

J. We do. For since the whole hope of our salvation consists in 
this, that his obedience, which he rendered to the Father, may be 
placed to our credit as though it were our own, it is necessary that he 
himself should be possessed by us. He does not communicate his 
benefits to us except as he makes himself ours. 

Q. But did he not give himself to be ours at that time, when he ex- 
posed himself to death, that he might reconcile us, being redeemed 
from the sentence of death, to the Father 1 

Ji, That is true. But it is not enough for us unless we receive him 
aow, in order that the efficacy and fruit of his death may reach us. 
Q. Is not the mode of receiving him, however, by faith 1 
Ji. This I allow ; but add at the same time, that this takes place, 
rot only as we believe that he died to redeem us from death, and rose 
•gain to acquire life for us, but as we acknowledge also that he dwells 
n us, and that we are joined to him with such union as holds between 
aembers and their proper head ; in order that by the grace of this 
. nion, we may become partakers of all his benefits." — Sect. v. (Nic- 
leyer's Coll. p. 164, 165.) 

One more extract from the great Reformer must suffice. It 
i taken from a short appendix to his tract, De vera par ticipa- 
one carnis et sanguinis Christi in sacra cocna, written against 
ie virulent Hesshuss in the year 1561, near the close of his life, 
'he object of the appendix is to set forth distinctly the points of 
greement and disagreement, in the case of the sacramental ques- 
on, with a view to ultimate concord. After stating the points with 
-gard to which both sides were agreed, touching the sacraments 
i general and the Lord's supper in particular ; this among the 
ist, that Christ in the Supper really and efficaciously fulfils all 
at the analogy of the signs demands, so that there is offered 

40 us a true communication with his body and blood ; he goes 

on to say: 

44 It remains to notice the points with regard to which it is still un- 
settled, in what light they are to be viewed or represented. 

All however, who are possessed of sound judgment, and approach 
the subject at the same time, without passion, must allow that the 
controversy is simply on the mode of eating ; since we openly and 
ingenuously affirm, that Christ becomes ours, in order that he may 
afterwards impart to us the benefits he possesses ; that his body also 
was not only once offered for our salvation, when he was slain upon 
the cross to expiate sin, but is daily extended to us for our nourish- 
ment ; so that while he himself dwells in us, we may have an inter- 
est also in all his blessings. We teach finally, that he is vivific be- 
cause he inspires his life into us, just as we derive strength from the 
nutriment of bread. It is in fixing the method of eating then, that 
contentions arise. Now our definition is, that the body of Christ is 
eaten, inasmuch as it forms the spiritual aliment of the soul. We call it 
aliment again in this sense, because by the incomprehensible power of 
his Spirit, he inspires into us his own life, so that it becomes common 



72 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



to us with himself, in the same way precisely as the vital sap from the 
root of a tree diffuses itself into the branches, or as vigor flows from 
the head of the body into its several members. In this definition, 
there is nothing captious, nothing obscure, nothing ambiguous or de- 
ceitful. 

That some, not satisfied with this clear simplicity, require the body 
©f Christ to be swallowed, is agreeable neither to the authority of 
Scripture nor the testimony of the ancient Church ; and it is marvel- 
lous that men possessed of moderate judgment and learning, should 
contend so pertinaciously for the new comment. What the Scriptures 
teach is not at all called by us into question, namely, that the flesh of 
Christ is truly meat and his blood truly drink ; since they are truly 
received by us, and avail to solid life. We profess also that this com- 
munication is exhibited in the Sacred Supper. Whoever insists on 
more, certainly exceeds proper limits." 

Again : " It is a vain dispute moreover that is made about the twofold 
body. The character of Christ's flesh was indeed changed when it 
was received into celestial glory ; whatever was terrene, mortal or 
perishable, it now put off. Still however it must be maintained, that 
no other body can be vivific for us, or may be counted meat indeed, 
save that which was crucified to atone for our sins ; as the sound of 
the words also indicates. The game body then which the Son of God 
once offered in sacrifice to the Father, he offers to us daily in the Sup- 
per, that it may be our spiritual aliment. Only that must be held 
which has been already intimated as to the mode, that it is not neces- 
sary that the essence of the flesh should descend from heaven in order 
that we may be fed by it ; but that the power of the Spirit is sufficient 
to penetrate through all impediments, and to surmount all local dis- 
tance. At the same time we do not deny, that the mode here is in- 
comprehensible to human thought; for flesh naturally could neither 
be the life of the soul, nor exert its power upon us from heaven, and not 
without reason is the communication, which makes us flesh of Christ's 
flesh and bone of his bones, denominated by Paula great mystery. In 
the sacred Supper then we acknowledge it a miracle, transcending 
both nature and our own understanding, that Christ's life is made 
common to us with himself, and his flesh given to us as aliment. 
Only let all comments be kept at a distance that are repugnant to the 
definition already given, such as those concerning the ubiquity of the 
body, or its secret inclusion under the symbol of bread, or its sub- 
stantial presence upon the earth. 

These things being disposed of, a doubt still appears with respect 
to the word substance which is readily allayed, if we put away the 
crass imagination of a manducation of the flesh, as though it were 
like corporal food, that being taken into the mouth is received by the 
belly. For if this absurdity be removed, there is no reason why we 
should deny that we are fed with Christ's flesh substantially ; since 
we truly coalesce with him into one body by faith, and are thus made 
one with him. Whence it follows that we are joined with him by 
substantial connection, just as substantial vigor flows down from the 
head into the members. The definition must stand then, that we are 
made to partake of Christ's flesh substantially ; not in the way of any 
carnal mixture, or as if the flesh of Christ drawn down from heaven 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF T IT E LORD'* SUrrER. 



7:1 



entered into ns, or were swallowed with the mouth ; but because the 
flesh of Christ as to its power and efficacy vivifies our souls, not 
otherwise than the body is nourished by the substance of bread and 
wine. 

Another subject of controversy is the word spiritually ; to which 
many are averse, because they think that it implies something imagi- 
nary or empty. On the contrary however, the body of Christ is said 
to be given to us spiritually in the Supper, because the secret energy 
of the Holy Spirit causes things that are separated by local distance 
to be notwithstanding joined together; so that life is made to reach 
into us from heaven out of the flesh of Christ; which power and 
faculty of vivification may be said not unsuitably to be something 
abstracted from his substance, provided only it be taken in a sound 
sense, namely that Christ's body remains in heaven, while neverthe- 
less life flows out from his substance and reaches to us who sojourn 
upon the earth." — Calv. Opp. edit. Jlmstelud. Tom. ix. p. 743, 744. 

It seems strange in view of such quotations as have now been 
presented, that any should think of still calling in question Cal- 
vin's faith in the doctrine of a real communication with Christ's 
life in the Lord's Supper. It will not do to talk of figurative 
language in the case, and to remind us that all is resolved by 
him constantly into a spiritual manducation as distinguished from 
one that is oral and physical. This is allowed on all hands ; he 
was no Romanist nor Lutheran. But if there ever was a clear 
case we have one here, when we affirm that Calvin's spiritual 
manducation was intended by himself to include full as much, 
in the case of believers, as was involved in the Lutheran hypo- 
thesis itself, that is a true participation of the substantial life of 
Christ's body and blood, according to the faith of the universal 
Church from the beginning. To guard against carnal miscon- 
struction, he was accustomed indeed to speak of this as effected 
by the ascent of the soul to Christ in heaven, through the power 
of the Holy Ghost, rather than by a proper descent of Christ's 
nature in the sacrament to the earth. But this affects not at all 
the substance of his doctrine. In whatever way it might be 
supposed to occur, he held and taught the jfa^ of a real presence 
of the Saviour's human life, for the soul of the believer, in the 
sacramental transaction. Of this presence and communication 
too, the sacrament as such was by the Spirit the true supernatu- 
ral vehicle and bearer. The Lutherans have pretended indeed, 
that he acknowledged no inward connection between the insti- 
tution and the grace it represented. But this is manifestly false. 
He does, to be sure, say of the signs that they have no virtue or 
force in themselves as such. Augustine says the same thing. 
But both Calvin and Augustine hold the transaction to be more 
than what falls upon the senses. In this view, it is held to be 
truly and properly the form, under which and by which, through 

7 



74 THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 

the Spirit, Christ is made present. Thus on 1 Cor. x. 3, he 
says: "The Papists confound sign and thing; profane men, 
such as Schwenkfeld and others like him, rend them asunder; 
let us keep the middle; that is, let us hold the conjunction 
established by the Lord, but with proper distinction, so as not 
to transfer rashly to one what belongs to the other." So, still 
more clearly, on 1 Cor. xi. 24. " Why is the appellation body 
attributed to the bread? All will allow, I presume, for the same 
reason that John denominates a dove the Holy Ghost. Thus 
far it is agreed. But now the Holy Ghost was so called, because 
he had appeared under the form (sub specie) of a dove ; whence 
the name is transferred to the visible sign. And why should we 
deny a similar metonymy here, by which the name of the body 
is attributed to the bread, because it is its sign and symbol." 
Next comes the meaning of the metonymy itself. It is more, 
he tells us, than a figure or a picture. "The dove is called the 
Spirit, as being the sure pledge (tessera) of the Spirit's invisible 
presence. So the bread is Christ's body, as it assures us cer- 
tainly of the exhibition of what it represents, or because the Lord 
in extending to us that visible symbol, gives us in fact along with 
it his own body; for Christ is no juggler, to mock us with empty 
appearances. Hence it is to me beyond all controversy, that 
the reality is here joined with the sign, or in other words that, 
so far as spiritual virtue is concerned, we do as truly partake of 
Christ's body as we eat the bread."* 

* F. D. Maurice, of King's College, London, in his late work entitled The 
Kingdom of Christ, which has attracted some attention, falls grossly into the 
same error with regard to Calvin, which it is here attempted to expose. The 
Caivinist, he says, (vol. ii., p. 105,) '•' requires that we should suppose there is 
no object present, unless there be something which perceives it; and having 
got into this contradiction, the next step is to suppose that faith is nota recep- 
tive, but a creative power ; that it makes the thing which it believes." He 
admits, at the same time, "that there were characteristics in the creed of the 
Caivinist, which ought especially to have delivered him" from the general 
tendency of Protestantism to run into this false view. So far as Calvin him- 
self is concerned, it must be perfectly plain from the testimony which has now 
been presented, that the charge quoted is utterly erroneous. He taught clearly 
an objective presence of Christ's life in the sacramental transaction as sue)), 
which could become available only through faith, but which faith could not be 
said, in any sense, to create; since the very guilt of the unworthy communi- 
cant proceeds mainly from this, that he treats the actually present grace as 
though it were a mere figment, not discerning the Lord's body. That the 
"Caivinist" of modern date has too often fallen into the contradiction of 
making faith creative, in the sacrament, rather than receptive, is indeed most 
painfully true. But in doing so he has fallen away entirely from the stand- 
point of the man whose name he professes to honour. Whether this stand- 
point is to be held itself responsible for the apostacy, is another question, 
perfectly legitimate and of immense practical importance; which it becomes 
the friends of the Reformed Church to look steadily in the face. If Calvinism 
— the system of Geneva — necessarily runs here into Zuinglianism, we may, 
indeed, well despair of the whole interest. For most assuredly no Church can 
stand, that is found to be constitutionally unsacramental. 



\ 



CALVINIST1C DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 75 

According to Schleiermachcr (Der. clir. Giaube, § 140), the 
Calvinistic view of the Lord's Supper connects, not indeed with 
the elements as such, but with the act of eating and drinking, 
not simply such a spiritual enjoyment of Christ as was taught 
by Zuingli ; but the real presence of his body and blood to be 
had no where else (die nirgend sonst zu habende wirkliche 
Gegenwart seines Leibes und Blutes). Both views, the Luthe- 
ran and Calvinistic, he tells us, acknowledge a real presence of 
Christ's body and blood. It will hardly be pretended, that such 
a theologian as Schleiermacher has mistaken the sense of Calvin 
in this case. It deserves to be noted besides, that this great 
master of ratiocination, with all his cool and free spirit of theo- 
logical inquiry, finds no absurdity or contradiction whatever in 
the Calvinistic theory itself. He prefers it on the whole to the 
view of Luther: although he thinks the truth may require still 
some higher middle theory, in which both at last shall be recon- 
ciled and made complete. The Zuinglian doctrine he says has 
the advantage of being very clear and easy to be understood ; 
but it is quite too low for the subject. 

Far el and Beza. 

At the Colloquy of Worms, held A. D. 1557, certain delegates 
presented themselves from the Reformed Gallic Churches, 
namely, William Far el, pastor at the time in Neufchatel, John 
Budaeus, a citizen of Geneva, Caspar Carmel, minister of the 
Church in Paris, and Theodore Beza, then professor at Lausanne. 
They exhibited here a Confession of Faith, which is to be con- 
sidered important, as embodying not simply their own views, but 
the views also of the wide religious communion which they 
represented. In the article of the Lord's Supper it employs the 
following language, which will be found at once closely coinci- 
dent with the representation embraced in the extracts just 
furnished from Calvin : 

" We confess that in the Supper of the Lord not only the benefits 
of Christ, but the very substance itself of the Son Man; that is, 
the same true flesh which the Word assumed into perpetual personal 
* union, in which he was born and suffered, rose again and ascended 
to heaven, and that true blood which he shed for us ; are not only sig- 
nified, or set forth symbolically, typically or in figure, like the me- 
mory of something absent, but are truly and really represented, ex- 
hibited, and offered for use ; in connection with symbols that are by- 
no means naked, but which, so far as God who promises and offers 
is concerned, always have the thing itself truly and certainly joined 
with them, whether proposed to believers or unbelievers." 

This last clause deserves especially to be noted, as affirming 



70 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



in the strongest manner the objective force of the institution. 
The power which it carries, as the medium of a real communi- 
cation with the flesh and blood of Christ, is in no sense the 
product of our piety and faith. Tt exists in the divine constitu- 
tion of the ordinance itself: though it can be of no value of 
course, where no organ is at hand for its reception. The article 
proceeds : 

"As it regards the mode now in which the thing itself, that is, the 
true body and true blood of the Lord, is connected with the symbols, 
we say that it is symbolical or sacramental. We call a sacramental 
mode not such as is figurative merely, but such as truly and certainly 
represents, under the form of visible things, what God along with the 
symbols exhibits and offers, namely, what we mentioned before, the 
true body and blood of Christ; which may show that we retain and 
defend the presence of the very body and blood of Christ in the Sup- 
per. So that if we have any controversy with truly pious and learned 
brethren, it is not concerning the thing itself, but only concerning the 
mode of the presence, which is known to God alone, and by us be- 
lieved. 

" Finally, as to the mode in which the thing itself, that is, the natu- 
ral and true substance of Christ, is truly and certainly communicated 
to us, we do not make it to be natural, nor imagine a local copulation, 
or a diffusion of Christ's human nature, or that crass and diabolical 
transubstantiation, or any gross mingling of the substance of Christ 
with ours ; but we say that it is a spiritual mode, that is, such as rests 
on the incomprehensible energy of God's Spirit, as unfol ded to us in that 
word of his own, This is my body. And we now beg all brethren dis- 
passionately to consider, whether it is proper that those who thus 
think and teach concerning the sacraments of Christ, should be 
branded as infidels and heretics." — Hospinian, Hist. S'icram. Pars Jilt, 
p. 433. 

Beza and Peter Martyr. 

In the year 1561 a conference was held on the subject of 
religion, at Poissy, in France, in the presence of the king of 
Navarre, and many other distinguished personages. Beza, who 
was now settled as a minister at Geneva, and Peter Martyr, 
professor of divinity in Zurich, appeared here, by special invita- 
tion, to represent the interest of the Reformed faith. Beza on 
this occasion made a long speech, in exposition of the leading * 
articles of the new confession, which was characterized by great 
eloquence and power, and filled the court and all present with 
the highest admiration. On the subject of the Eucharist, he 
reiterates the view which we find exhibited in the extract last 
given; namely, that the communion of the believer with Christ 
in this ordinance involves a real participation in his flesh and 
blood. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



77 



" We do not say what some, through misapprehension of our lan- 
guage, have supposed us to teach : that there is in the holy Supper a 
commemoration only of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor do 
we say, that we are by it partakers only of the fruit of his death and 
passion; but we join the ground also with the produce, (fundum cum 
frudibus^) which it is found to yield ; asserting with Paul, that the 
bread which we break by divine appointment, is the communion, that 
is, the communication of Christ's body for us crucified, and the cup 
which we drink, the communication of his true blood for us poured 
out; yea, in that same substance, which he took in the womb of the 
virgin, and which he carried up into heaven. And what is there then, 
I pray, which you can find in this sacrament, that we too may not seek 
and find V'—Hosp. II. p. 515. 

After this strong statement, he goes on to exclude from the 
doctrine, in terms equally distinct, the idea of transubstantiatiou 
in the first place, and then of every thing like a local compre- 
hension of Christ's body in, with or under the elements, as 
taught by Luther. In opposition to every such imagination he 
says: " We affirm that his body is as far removed from the bread 
and wine, as heaven is exalted high above the earth;" though 
he adds immediately, that the reality of the communion is in no 
respect impaired by this consideration ; since by the power of 
faith, in a spiritual way, we still partake of his body and blood 
" as truly as we see the sacraments with our eyes, touch them 
with our hands, take them into our mouths, and are nourished 
and supported by their substance in our corporal life." 

The remark that Christ's body and the elements locally con- 
sidered, are as far apart as heaven and earth, caused a general 
murmur, we are told, in the assembly, and was made the occa- 
sion afterwards of no small reproach. Beza thought it neces- 
sary in consequence to address a letter to the queen of Navarre, 
craving an opportunity to explain himself more fully on this 
point. In this he says : 

44 I was led to the remark which h^s given offence, in meeting the 
objection of some who, through misunderstanding, charge us w T ith 
wishing- to exclude Christ from the sacrament; which would be in- 
deed manifestly impious. Whereas the fact is we hold it sure from 
the word of God, that this precious sacrament was instituted by the 
Son of God, for the purpose of making us more and more partakers of 
the substance of his true body and his true blood, in order that we 
may thus become more closely united to him, and coalesce with him 
unto eternal life. If this were not the case, it would not be the Sup- 
per of Jesus Christ. So far are we then from saying Jesus Christ is 
absent from the Supper, that we of all men abhor that blasphemy. But 
we Sciy it makes a great difference here, whether we hold Jesus Christ 
to be present in the Supper, in so far as he gives us in it truly his own 
body and his own blood, or make his body and blood to be included 
in the bread. The first w T e affirm ; the second we deny, as repugnant 

7* 



78 



THE MYSTICAL TRESENCE. 



to the truth of Christ's nature, to the article on the ascension, and to 
the doctrine of the fathers." — Hasp, II. p. 516. 

This colloquy of Poissy was continued from the first part of 
September till towards the close of November. It was thought 
best, however, in the progress of it. to give it a private form, in 
place of the public character under which it was commenced. 
For this purpose five delegates were appointed on the part of 
the Romanists, including two doctors of the Sorbonne, and five 
on the part of the Reformed, to confer together in a free way 
on the various subjects in debate. The representatives of the 
Reformed Church were Beza, Martyr, Gallasius, Marloratus, 
and Espina3us. A large share of their attention was given by 
these collocutors, of course, to the sacramental question. As 
the result of the discussion, they agreed finally in the following 
formula, as expressing their common belief. 

" We confess that Jesus Christ in the Supper offers, gives, and 
truly exhibits to us, the substance of his body and blood, by the ope- 
ration of the Holy Ghost; and that we receive and eat, spiritually 
and by faith, that true body that was slain for us ; that we may be bone 
of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and so be vivified by him and made 
to partake of all that is w T anted for our salvation. And whereas faith, 
resting on the divine word, makes what it perceives to be present ; and 
we by this faith receive truly and efficaciously the true and natural body 
and blood of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost; we ac- 
knowledge in this respect the presence of the body and blood them- 
selves in the Supper." 

To this formula the delegates on the Romanist side declared 
themselves willing to subscribe, as well as those on the side of 
the Reformed Church ; and most of the prelates in attendance 
seemed also to be satisfied with it, when it was first submitted 
for their approval. But the authority of the Sorbonne led sub- 
sequently to its general rejection, as treasonable to the Catholic* 
faith ; and the five Romanist collocutors fell under no small 
reproach in consequence, as Thaving conspired with heretics to 
wrong the orthodox doctrine of the Church. Hosp. II p. 519 — 
521. 

The way is now fairly open for bringing forward the testi- 
mony of the several Confessions which were formed about this 
time, for their own use, by the different national branches of the 
Reformed Church. We find among them all a truly remarkable 
correspondence throughout; but no where is it more striking, 
than in the case of this very article of the Lord's Supper. The 
language they employ is sufficiently distinct in itself, for the 
most part, to exclude all doubt as to their true meaning on the 
point with which we are now concerned. But if any room might 



CALVIN I STIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



79 



seem to be left for hesitation, it must be altogether barred surely 
by the view now presented of the actual state of opinion, at the 
time when these symbolical books were framed. The more 
fully we become acquainted with the historical connections and 
relations under which they started into life, the more shall we 
feel it to be impossible that they should mean any thing less 
than the full strength of their language seems to mean. And it 
is hardly necessary to add, that their historical sense, as thus 
determined, must be admitted to be in the end their only true 
sense. 

The Gallic Confession. 

This was formed by an assembly of delegates from the Re- 
formed Churches of France, who were called together for the 
purpose, in Paris, in the. year 1559. It follows closely the doc- 
trine of Calvin and Beza, as already presented. Some have sup- 
posed indeed that it proceeded from the pen of Calvin himself. 
But of this there is no historical evidence, and the supposition 
is in no respect necessary to account for the agreement just men- 
tioned. The agreement serves only to show, that the doctrine 
of Calvin in this case, was the doctrine in fact of ihe Reformed 
Church, which came now to be incorporated into its symbolical 
books accordingly, in the most distinct terms. The Confession 
teaches that Christ a truly feeds and nourishes us with his flesh 
and blood, that being made one with him, we may have with him 
a common life." 

" For although he is now in heaven, and will remain there also till 
he shall come to judge the world ; we believe, notwithstanding, that 
through the secret and incomprehensible energy of his Spirit, appre- 
hended by faith, he nourishes and vivifies us by the substance of his 
body and blood. We say, however, that this is done spiritually, not as 
substituting thus an imagination or thought for the power of the fact, 
but rather because this mystery of our coalition with Christ is so 
sublime, that it transcends all our senses, and so also the whole course 
of nature."— Art. 36. 

"We believe, as before said, that in the vSupper, as in Baptism, 
God in fact, that is, truly and efficaciously, grants unto us all that is 
there sacramentally represented; and so we join with the signs the 
true possession and fruition of what is thus olFered to us. We affirm, 
therefore, that those who bring to the Lord's table the vessel of a 
pure faith, truly receive what the signs there testify ; namely, that 
the body and blood of Jesus Christ are not less the meat and drink 
of the soul, than bread and wine are the food of the body." — Art. 37. 
(Niemeycr Coll. Qmf.p, 338.) 



80 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Old Scotch Confession. 

The overthrow of Popery took place in Scotland in the year 
1569 ; at which time also this Confession was produced, under the 
auspices particularly of the distinguished Reformer, John Knox. 
On the point now in hand it utters itself in the following style: 

" We do then utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm that 
the sacraments are nothing else but mere naked signs. Rather, we 
surely believe, that by baptism we are inserted into Christ, and 
made partakers of his righteousness, by w T hich all our sins are covered 
and remitted. And also, that in the Lord's Supper, rightly used, Christ 
is so united to us as to be the very nutriment and food of our souls. 
Not that we may imagine any transubstantiate on of the bread into the 
natural body of Christ, and of the wine into his natural blood, as the 
papists have perniciously taught, and believe to their own damnation. 
But this union and conjunction which we have with the body and 
blood of Jesus Christ, in the right use of -the sacrament, is effected 
by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who carries us by true faith above 
all that is seen, and all that is carnal and terrestrial, and causes us 
to feed upon the body and blood of Jesus Christ, once broken for us 
and poured out, but now in heaven, appearing for us in the presence 
of the Father. And though the distance be immense in space between 
his body now glorified in heaven and us mortals still upon the earth, 
we do notwithstanding firmly believe that the bread which we break 
is the communion of his bod)^, and the cup which we bless the com- 
munion of his blood ; and so we confess that believers in the right use 
of the Lord's Supper thus eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus 
Christ, and we believe surely that he dwells in them and they in him, 
yea, that they become thus flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones; 
for as the eternal Deity has imparted life and immortality to the flesh 
of Jesus Christ, so likewise his flesh and blood, when eaten and 
drunk by us, confer upon us the same prerogatives. — Jlrt. 21. (Nic- 
mcyer, p. 352, 353.) 

Belgic Confession. 

This dates from 1563; and is of great authority and force as 
a standard exhibition of the faith of the Reformed Dutch 
Church, both in Holland and in this country. It was solemnly 
approved besides by the Synod of Dort, and may be said to be 
clothed in this way with a sort of oecumenical character, as a 
true exposition of the faith of the entire Reformed Church, as 
it stood in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its tes- 
timony on the subject before us is particularly strong. 

" The sacraments are signs and visible symbols of invisible internal 
realities, through which as means God himself works in us by the power 
of the Holy Spirit. Those signs then are by no means vain or void ; 
nor are they instituted to deceive or disappoint us. For the truth of 
them is Jesus Christ himself, without whom they would be of no force 
whatever."—^. 33. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF TIJE LOHd's SUPPER. 81 

44 He has instituted terrene and visible bread and wine to be the sa- 
crament of his body and blood ; by which we are assured, that as truly 
as we receive and hold in our hands this sacrament, and eat the same 
with our mouth, to the sustentation of our natural life, so truly also 
do we by faith, which is as it were the hand and mouth of our soul, 
receive the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Saviour, in 
our souls, to the promotion of our spiritual life. Moreover, it is most 
certain that Christ commends his sacrament to us so earnestly not 
without cause, as himself performing' in us really all that he represents 
to us in those sacred signs; although the mode is such as to surpass 
the apprehension of our mind, and cannot be understood by any ; since 
the operation of the Holy Spirit is always secret and incomprehensi- 
ble. We may say, how T ever, that what is eaten is the very natural body 
of Christ, and what is drunk, his true blood; only the instrument of 
medium by which we eat and drink these is not the corporeal mouth, 
but our own spirit itself, and this by faith." — Art. 35. (Nicmeyer, p. 
383,385.)* 

Second Helvetic Confession. 

What is called the Second or Later Helvetic Confession, was 
drawn up by Henry Bulling er, in the year 1562; though it did 
not become of public authority before the year 156G. It be- 
came in the end the standing, universally acknowledged expo- 
sition of the faith of the whole Helvetic Church, and had great 
credit also in foreign countries. On the subject of the Lord's 

* I translate from the Latin ; and there are frequent variations in the text 
of the Confession itself, as given in different editions. This may explain any 
deviations from the letter of the English version, as used by the Reformed 
Dutch Church in this country. For any one who is at all familiar with the 
view of Calvin, or with the true character of the sacramental question in the 
sixteenth century, the sense of the Confession is too clear to be mistaken. 
Christ, it is true, is held to " sit always at the right hand of his Father in the 
heavens ;" but notwithstanding all this, he " doth not cease to make us par- 
takers of himself by faith." And to guard against the idea of a mere moral 
communication in the case, it is added, that he conveys to us, at his table, not 
simply his benefits or merits, but these as inhering in his person ; (( both him- 
self, and the merits of his sufferings and death." Christians have a two-fold 
life; one natural, the other spiritual, beginning with their second birth i( in 
the communion of the body of Christ." This last life is supported by a living 
bread, sent from heaven for the purpose, ci namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes 
and strengthens the spiritual life of believers when they eat him, that is to 
say, when they apply and receive him by faith in the spirit." A spiritual 
reception, of course, but still a real reception of Christ's true human and 
heavenly life; otherwise the article must be held guilty of the most egregious 
trifling, in the case of one of the most solemn and perilous points in theology. 
The Form for the administration of the Lord's Supper, in the Liturgy of the 
Reformed Dutch Church, corresponds fully with the doctrine of the Confes- 
sion. " That we may now be fed with the true heavenly bread, Christ Jesus," 
the service exhorts, " let us not cleave with our hearts unto the external bread 
and wine, but lift them up on high in heaven, where Christ Jesus is our advo- 
cate at the right hand of his heavenly Father, whither all the articles of our 
Faith lead us; not doubting but we shall as certainly he led and refreshed in 
our souls, through the working of the Holy Ghost, with his body and blood, as 
we receive the holy bread and wine in remembrance of him." 



82 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Supper it is particularly full. Take on the point immediately 
before us the following extract: 

" Believers receive what is given by the minister of the Lord, and 
eat the Lord's bread and drink of the Lord's cup ; inwardly, however, 
in the mean time, by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit, they 
partake also of the Lord's flesh and blood, and are fed by these unto 
eternal life. For the flesh and blood of Christ are true meat and drink 
unto eternal life ; and Christ himself, as delivered up for us and our 
salvation, is that which mainly makes the Supper, nor do we suffer 
any thing else to be put in his room." — Art. 21. 

The article then goes on, in explanation of this statement, to 
describe different forms of manducation. There is first a cor- 
poral manducation, such as the Capernaites had in their mind, 
when they strove among themselves saying, How can this man 
give us his flesh to eat? Then there is a spiritual manducation, 
by which Christ is so appropriated in the way of ordinary faith, 
that he lives in us and we in him. " By this is not meant a 
merely imaginary, undefinable food, but the body of the Lord 
itself delivered up for us, which however is received by believers, 
not corporally, but spiritually by faith." Still different from this 
lastly is the sacramental manducation, " by which the believer 
not only participates in the true body and blood of the Lord 
spiritually and internally, but outwardly also by coming to the 
Lord's table receives the visible sacrament of the Lord's body 
and blood." The sacrament adds something of its own to the 
ordinary life of faith. " He that partakes of the sacrament out- 
wardly with true faith, partakes not of the sign only, but enjoys 
also, as already said, the thing itself which this represents:" — 
(Niamey er, p. 519, 520.) 

The occasion by which this confession became public, was as 
follows. A spirit of the most violent intolerance had come to 
prevail on the part of the rigid Lutherans, excited by such men 
as Westphal, Timann, and Hesshuss, against all who professed 
the Reformed doctrine ; but in no direction was it more active 
than towards the elector of the Palatinate, Frederick the Third. 
Fears were entertained even, that he would be excluded from the 
peace between the Catholics and Protestants. In these circum- 
stances, it became an object of great importance, to bring all the 
Reformed Churches into as close a connection as possible. Fre- 
derick especially had his heart set upon this point. Towards 
the close of the year 1565, he wrote to Buliinger on the subject, 
and begged him in particular to send him as soon as possible a 
confession of faith, that might serve to repress the cavils of the 
Lutherans, with a view to the imperial diet which was then close 
at hand. Bullino-er forwarded him the confession which he had 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUTTER. 83 

prepared three years before; which so pleased the elector, that 
he proposed at once to have it translated and published in the 
German tongue. It was now felt important, to make it if possi- 
ble of still more general authority; for which purpose it was sub- 
mitted to the other Helvetic Churches ; and in this way, being 
generally approved it became known in time following as the 
proper Swiss Confession. The historical relation now men- 
tioned, in the case of this confession is important, as it serves to 
show the substantial harmony of Switzerland and the Palatinate 
on the sacramental question, at the time it was published. A 
harmony too that rested on the basis of the Calvinistic doctrine, 
as it has been already explained ; for that this doctrine formed 
the reigning view of the Reformed Church in the Palatinate, 
will soon be placed beyond all shadow of doubt. 

The Heidelberg Catechism, 

Next in order comes the venerable symbol of the German Re- 
formed Church, the Catechism of the Palatinate; drawn up, in 
obedience to an appointment from the elector, Frederick III., 
by Caspar OIevian,a disciple of Calvin, and Zacharias Ursinns, 
a friend of Melancthon ; approved and ratified by a general eccle- 
siastical synod called at Heidelberg for the purpose; and solemnly 
published as a confessional standard in the year J5G3. It has 
been translated into ali modern civilized tongues, honoured with 
countless commentaries, and exalted by general acknowledgment 
to a sort of symbolical authority for the whole Reformed Church. 

To place its testimony in a proper light, it is necessary to no- 
tice a little more particularly than has yet been done, the actual 
posture of the sacramental controversy in Germany at the time it 
was formed. Only in this way, can we come to a clear view of the 
circumstances in which it had its origin, by which, in the nature 
of the case, its character and meaning are to be interpreted. 

After the death of Luther, A. D. 1546, the controversy on the 
subject of the sacrament was allowed for some years to remain 
at rest. As it began to appear, however, before long, that the 
high ground occupied by the great Reformer was coming to be 
silently abandoned by many, who still considered themselves true 
to the Augsburg Confession, a violent movement was gradually 
created, antagonistically to this tendency, in the opposite direc- 
tion. It commenced with an assault, in the first place, upon 
Calvin and Peter Martyr, who had both been led to declare 
themselves openly upon the subject, in a way that was necessa- 
rily offensive to such as were still disposed to insist rigidly on 
the extreme view ; though no thought of giving offence, or pro- 
voking controversy, was entertained probably at the time; as it 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



was supposed the mind of the church had come to be very gene- 
rally inclined to the same moderate view, or that it was prepared 
at least to treat it with patient indulgence. But the case soon 
showed itself to be different. The war was opened, in the year 
1552, by Joachim Westphal, preacher in Hamburg, with his 
Farrago; which was intended to be at once a battle challenge 
to the Swiss churches, with Calvin at their head, and a call to 
arms upon all who could be made to feel with himself that the 
strong towers of Lutheran orthodoxy were in danger of being 
overthrown. This was followed by .a second attack, the follow- 
ing year; and then again, the year after, by a third. Meanwhile 
other influences also were employed, but too successfully, to 
rouse the spirit of party hatred and party strife, in the same 
direction. Calvin found himself now compelled to take up the 
pen, in self-defence. Gradually the battle thickens. Other 
champions appear in the field. The Lutheran church is torn 
with dissension and distraction in her own bosom. The rigid 
party, " fierce for orthodoxy," have their hands full at last with 
the work of suppressing heresy at home. The horrible sacra- 
mentarian doctrine is found everywhere lifting up its head, or at 
least struggling to do so, under the very shadow of the Augsburg 
Confession itself. And what is worse still, the venerable author 
of the Confession, still living at Wittemberg, refuses to lift a 
finger in opposition to the mischief; nay, is more than suspected 
of being himself in league with it in his heart. No wonder that 
all Protestant Germany is mad with theological excitement and 
passion. 

A full account of these agitations and conflicts, may be found 
in Planck's " Geschichte der Protest ant isclien Theologie" vol. v. 
Second Part. They form one of the most strange and interest- 
ing chapters, in the church history of the sixteenth century. 

But what was the nature of the question, on w hich the parties 
showed themselves to be at issue in this case, with regard to the 
Lord's Supper? It related not at all to the reality of the sacra- 
mental presence, but only and wholly to its mode. The contro- 
versy was not at all between the high view of Luther and the low 
theory commonly attributed to Zuingli. The great point was 
conceded now on all hands, that the sacrament involves a real 
participation in the substance of Christ's flesh and blood, that is 
in his true human life itself, as the only ground of our salva- 
tion. With this confession however the rigid party were not 
satisfied. They insisted on certain definitions and admissions be- 
sides, which appeared to them necessary to carry out the doctrine 
in its true sense. They contended for the formula, "In, with, 
and under" as indispensable to a complete expression of the 
sacramental presence. The communication must be allowed 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



85 



to be by the mouth. It must be granted in the case of all who 
eat, whether with or without faith. Finally, the ubiquity of 
Christ's body, and the comnmnicatio idiomatum in its full extent, 
must be accepted also, as the only basis on which the doctrine 
could find a solid foundation. It was for refusing to admit 
these extreme requisitions only, that the other party was branded 
with the title Sacramentarian, and held up to odium in every 
direction as the pest of society. It was not the Zuinglian view 
of the Lord's Supper, but the Calvinistic view, in all its length 
and breadth, as already described, which was now recognized as 
the proper doctrine of the Reformed Church, and as such pur- 
sued with unrelenting hate by the high toned orthodoxy of the 
day. It is important to bear this continually in mind. 

The intestine war broke forth first in the city of Bremen; 
where it soon became very violent, and gradually involved the 
whole country in commotion. The immediate occasion of it 
was furnished by the distinguished preacher, Albert Harden- 
berg; a man who stood in the highest credit for learning and 
piety, and was considered in some respects the main ornament 
of the place to which he belonged; but who, unfortunately for 
himself, was suspected of being more Reformed than Lutheran 
in his view of the Lord's Supper. It was not the least consider- 
ation in his prejudice, that he was known to be in regular cor- 
respondence with Melancthon, as one of his most intimate and 
confidential friends. The movement against him was com- 
menced in 1555, by John Timann, one of his colleagues in the 
ministry of Bremen, who now came forward with great zeal to 
the assistance of Westphal in his crusade against heresy. The 
other preachers were after some time fully engaged also in the 
process of persecution. Every effort was made to bring the man 
into discredit with the magistracy and the people, as an enemy 
of the true Lutheran faith. The pulpits, in the end, were made 
to ring with reproaches, hurled upon his head. Conspiracy and 
intrigue knew no rest for years. Timann died in the midst of 
the controversy; but his mantle fell upon others, who easily sup- 
plied his place. Other cities and states, Hamburg, Lubeck, 
Lunenburg, Saxony, Mecklinburg, Wirtemburg, Denmark, 
were secretly engaged to interpose their mediation. In the 
end, Hardenberg found it necessary to retire. The controversy, 
however, was still continued, and came to a more favourable 
result ultimately than might have been expected. It lasted alto- 
gether thirteen years, holding the city of Bremen in violent dis- 
turbance the whole time. 

In close connection with the religious struggle of Bremen, so 
far as its interior history was concerned, stands the religious 
revolution of the Palatinate, which fell like a thunderbolt on the 

8 



80 



THE MYSTICAL PRESExXCE. 



ears of Lutheran Germany, while that struggle was still in pro- 
gress. It took place under the following circumstances. 

One of the most violent, unsettled spirits of this turbulent 
period, was Tikmann Hesshuss; rendered memorable if by 
nothing else, at least by the merciless castigation inflicted upon 
him by Calvin, in his last tract on the Sacrament.* He was a 
man of inordinate ambition, fond of money, constitutionally 
intolerant and overbearing; and withal, whether by conviction 
or accident, a perfect zealot in the cause of Lutheran orthodoxy. 
In the year 1558, he was appointed first professor in the Uni- 
versity of Heidelberg, and general superintendent of all the 
churches in the Palatinate. Six months, however, had not 
elapsed, before he had made himself here, as in all places where 
he had lived before, an object of very general dislike. In par- 
ticular, he was drawn into strong collision with one William 
Klebiz, who occupied the situation of a deacon at the time in 
Heidelberg; a man also, it would seem, of most unclerical tem- 
per, and but little inclined to maintain friendly relations with 
the new superintendent. It soon came between them to an 
open, violent rupture; in which the sacramental question was 
made the prominent subject of quarrel. Hesshuss charged Kle- 
biz with heresy, as favouring the Calvinistic view of Christ's 
presence in the Lord's Supper rather than the strict Lutheran. 
The point of his apostacy was found mainly in this, that he 
affirmed the participation of Christ's body in the Supper to be 
by faith and not by the mouth. Hesshuss grew savage in his 
denunciations; and poured forth his indignation every sabbath, 
from the pulpit, upon the new Arius, who had made his appear- 
ance in the Heidelberg Church; not sparing at the same time 
the university and the authorities of the city, for their supposed 
indifference to the portentous mischief with which they were 
threatened. Klebiz returned violence for violence. The whole 
city was thrown into commotion. In these circumstances, 
Frederick III. succeeded to the electorate. The moderate mea- 
sures he employed in the first place, to allay the strife, proved 
unavailing. In the end, lie found it necessary to resort to more 

* Dilucida Explicatio Sana Doctrince de Vera Participations Carnis et San- 
guinis Christi, in Sacra Caina. Ad discutiendas Heshusii nebulas. Published 
1561. In this tract, Hesshuss is handled, as we say, without gloves. Inscitia 
cum imprudent ia, stoliditas et protervia, delirium, #c, are charged upon him 
in full measure ; and such epithets as impurus scurra, epilepticus, noster 
Thraso, impura bcstia, appear plentifully sprinkled over the whole dis- 
cussion. In conclusion, the writer excuses himself from farther controversy 
with the man as being destitute of all modesty and reason, delivering him 
over at the same time to the discipline of Beza. " Si qua esset in bestia 
ingenuitas, vel docilitas, ab ejus calumniis me purgarem ; sed quia taurus est 
indomitus, laseiviam in qua nimis exultat, Bez<B subicrendam trado Opv. ix, 
p. 723-74.2. * ™ 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



87 



vigorous means. Both Hesshuss and Klebiz were dismissed 
accordingly from office; and in this way the public quiet was 
restored. 

Frederick was now made to feel the importance of having the 
subject of this controversy brought to some such settlement, in 
his dominions, as might preserve the peace of the country in 
time to come. He formed the plan accordingly of establishing 
a rule of faith for the Palatinate, to which all should be required 
to conform. To sustain himself in this object, he wrote to Me- 
Jancthon, asking his counsel and advice. This drew forth the 
celebrated response of Melancthon, which became public after 
his death, and involved his memory in no small reproach, with 
the stiff party to whose views it was found to be opposed. It 
approved the elector's course, in silencing the sacramental con- 
troversy, and also his purpose of excluding strife by requiring all 
to submit to some common form of words; whilst it very deci- 
dedly condemned the use of any such terms for this purpose, as 
were pressed upon the Church by Hesshuss and men of the same 
stamp. The elector was already decided in his own mind, in 
favour of the moderate or Calvinistic view of the sacrament. He 
found the same disposition predominant also among his people. 
In these circumstances, his election was soon made. It was 
resolved that the Palatinate should become Reformed. 

This event created, of course, a great sensation. Among 
others, the son-in-law of the elector, duke John Frederick of 
Saxony, was much disturbed and troubled at the tidings. He 
immediately took a journey to Heidelberg, carrying with him a 
pair of his most expert theologians, Morlin and Stossel, to rescue 
his relative, if possible, from the dangerous snare of Calvinism, 
into which he had so unhappily fallen. For this purpose a public 
disputation was proposed, to be held between the two theologians 
just mentioned, and any the elector might see fit to nominate 
for the defence of his own cause. The proposal was accepted ; 
and a disputation followed, which was continued for five full 
days in the presence of the two princes. It was held in the 
month of June, 1560. 

The Calvinistic cause was maintained by Peter Bocquin, one 
of the most distinguished theologians at the time in Heidelberg. 
The whole debate turned only upon the mode of the eucharistic 
presence. The divines of John Frederick contended for the 
high Lutheran doctrine of a true corporeal presence, in, with and 
under the bread; to be apprehended orally and not simply in a 
spiritual way ; for unbelievers accordingly, as well as for be- 
lievers. Bocquin, on the other hand, maintained the view, that 
Christ is present to the organ of faith only, by the power of the 
Holy Ghost. He allowed, however, not only " that the body is 



88 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



presented until the bread/' but also "that the true substance of 
the true body is received by believers f and showed convincingly, 
that this does not make it necessary to suppose an oral commu- 
nication, or to hold that the body is either in the bread or wider 
it. The result of the whole disputation was, that the elector 
found himself only more confirmed than before, in his resolution 
to establish the Reformed doctrine in the Palatinate. 

In these circumstances, the Heidelberg Catechism was pro- 
duced, and made the public formulary of faith, in the way already 
stated. We may easily understand, from the nature of the case, 
on what view its doctrine of the Lord's Supper must necessarily 
be constructed. Tt occupies the Calvinistic ground, as distin- 
guished from the Lutheran on the one side and the Zuinglian 
on the other. It rejects explicitly the idea of an oral manduca- 
tion; but, as Planck remarks, teaches also in the clearest terms, 
that the soul of the believer is truly fed, in this sacrament, by an 
actual participation of the body and blood of Christ. But let us 
now hear the Catechism itself. 

In answer to Question 75, it is said that Christ, " feeds and 
nourishes my soul to everlasting life, with his crucified body and 
shed blood, as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister, 
and taste with my mouth, the bread and cup of the Lord, as certain 
signs of the body and blood of Christ." 

" Quest. 76. What is it then to eat the crucified body and drinkihe shed 
blood of Christ ? 

"Ans. It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the suf- 
ferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the pardon of sin 
and life eternal ; but also, besides that, to become more and more united 
to his sacred body, by the Holy Ghost who dwells both in Christ 
and in us ; so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, 
are notwithstanding, 6 flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and 
that we live and are governed forever by one spirit, as members of the 
same body are by one soul." 

" Quest. 79. Why then doth Christ call the bread his body, and the 
cup his blood, or the new covenant in his blood ; and Paul the communion 
of the body and blood of Christ 7 

"Ans. Christ speaks thus, not without great reason; namely not only 
thereby to teach us that as bread and wine support this temporal life, 
so his crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink 
whereby our souls are fed to eternal life ; but more especially, by these 
visible signs and pledges to assure us, that we are as really partakers 
of his true body and blood, (by the operation of the Holy Ghost,) as 
we receive by the mouths of our bodies these holy signs in remem- 
brance of him ; and that all his sufferings and obedience are as cer- 
tainly ours as if we had in our own persons suffered and made satis- 
faction for our sins to God." 

Here we have all the characteristic positions and distinctions 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



89 



of Calvin's theory, plainly brought into view; and with the 
knowledge of this theory familiar to our minds, and the historical 
conditions under which the Catechism was created full in sight, 
we must do violence to all sound interpretation, if we can allow 
ourselves to understand it in any other sense. True to the gene- 
ral form in which the controversy stood at the time, it affirms a 
real communion with Christ's flesh and blood ; allows the fact ; 
but refuses to be bound by the Lutheran determination of the 
mode. The presence of Christ is not " an, with and under" the 
bread, but only with it; not for the mouth, but only for faith; 
and so of course, though this is not expressly mentioned, not for 
unbelievers but for believers only. It is however, in this way, a 
true presence. The believer partakes of Christ, not only in 
figure, but in fact; not of his benefits simply, but of his actual 
life 5 not of his life as divine merely, but of the substance of his 
human life, as denoted by his body and blood. The signs not 
only testify to us the general truth that Christ is our life, but 
seal this truth to us as a fact actualized along with their exhibi- 
tion and use. To say that by the participation of Christ's body 
and blood the Catechism means only a moral union with him, 
by faith and an interest in the benefits of his death, is to charge 
it with the most wretched tautology, where with its " besides 
that" and its " more especially" it plainly intends a climax ; since 
according to this view the second proposition, in each case, 
must be considered an unmeaning repetition simply of the sense 
of the first, in terms far more obscure and hard to understand. 
No such poor tautology can be allowed. The Catechism counts 
it not enough, that we embrace the offer of salvation, as some- 
thing separate from Christ; we must be incorporated with his 
life, we must have part in the very substance of his flesh and 
blood, in order that we may have part truly at the same time in 
all the blessings he has procured, as though " we had in our own 
persons suffered and made satisfaction for our sins unto God." 

We may be told indeed that the language of the Catechism, 
and of the other Confessions also which have been quoted, must 
be taken to some extent in a figurative sense ; since it is admitted 
that the body and blood of Christ are not corporeally present in 
the sacrament, and they cannot therefore be taken literally into 
the believer's person. Allowing this however, in the sense of 
the objection itself, it by no means follows that the figure may 
be resolved into any such low meaning as would empty it of its 
force and spirit altogether. If by eating the flesh and blood of 
Christ the framers of these confessions meant only to express, by 
a strong figure, the act of believing upon him and appropriat- 
ing his merits, they must be allowed to have uttered themselves in 
a most careless way ; all the more marvellous, not to say absolutely 

8* 



90 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



senseless, that it was directly adapted to encourage that very 
superstition of a gross corporeal presence, based upon the letter 
of Christ's words, which with all their force they continually op- 
posed. The thought is absurd. By flesh and blood, they mean 
the true body of Christ; the same that was born of Mary, and 
hung upon the cross, and is now enthroned in heaven. This 
the believer feeds upon, not carnally, but spiritually ; so however 
that its true and proper substance, the reality which belongs to 
it as life, human life, is conveyed over into his person. In this 
way he " becomes united more and more to his sacred body, by 
the Holy Ghost," so as to be truly " flesh of his flesh and bone 
of his bone," even as limb and head are filled and ruled with the 
same life in the body physically considered. 

But this " sacred body" of the Saviour, we hear it sometimes 
said, is the Church. Allow it to be so; it only follows that the 
totality of Christ's life, including his substantial humanity, is in 
the Church, by organic derivation from himself as its head. So 
that we come at last to the same result. To be incorporated 
with the Church, in this sense, is to be incorporated with Christ 
at the same time in his true human life, in the way already de- 
scribed. But the Catechism has no reference to the Church in 
this case; especially not to the Church in any such external 
view, as the interpretation now noticed is meant to imply. The 
" sacred body" to which his people are more and more united, is 
his own proper person in human form, once crucified for our 
sins and now gloriously exalted for our justification in heaven.* 
Such was the view of the Reformed Church at this time. Such 
is the sense of the Catechism. 

Should any doubt however still linger, with regard to the sa- 
cramental doctrine of the Catechism, as now stated, it must be 
annihilated certainly by our next authority. This is the testi- 
mony of Ursinus himself. 

Ursinus. 

The works of this divine have been published in three folio 
volumes. Having unfortunately no access to these in their ori- 
ginal form, I can only refer to them in an indirect way. They 
include a good deal on the subject of the sacraments. Hospi- 
nian (Hist. Sacram. Pars Altera, p. 659,660) mentions particu- 

* Calvin expressly rejects the idea, that by the body of Christ, to which we 
are united in the sacrament, is to be understood merely the Church. He repels 
as slanderous, the attempt to fasten on his view this consequence; "quasi 
mysticum in Coena corpus sumamus pro Ecclesia. Hoc certe, vehnt noHntj 
nobis principium cum ipsis commune est, designari Christi verbis verum Mud 
corpus, cujus immolatio nos Deo reconciliavit." Opp. ix., p. 701. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



91 



larly a tract from his pen, which was first puhlished, A. D. 1564, 
in the name of the theological faculty of Heidelberg. It bore 
for its title, " The True Doctrine of the Holy Supper of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, faithfully expounded from the principles and 
sense of the divine Scriptures, the ancient and orthodox Church, 
and also of the Augsburg Confession." In the third chapter of 
this work, it is proposed to settle the true state of the question, 
which was the subject of controversy in the Protestant Church. 
This, it is declared, is not whether the flesh of Christ be eaten ; 
for this none of us deny; but how it is eaten." Here the Lu- 
therans answer, corporally and orally, by the godly and ungodly. 
We say, on the contrary, spiritually only by believers." 

The earliest commentary we have upon the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism, is that of Ursinus himself, published from his divinity lec- 
tures, after his death, by David Parens. This has been trans- 
lated from the original Latin into English. Not having the 
Latin work at hand, I can only appeal to the translation, the 
" Summe of Christian Religion by Zacharias Ursinus" as pub- 
lished, London, 1645. The subject of the sacraments is dis- 
cussed in it, of course, at large. The following quotations will 
serve to give a fair view of the author's doctrine, with regard to 
the Lord's Supper. 

" These two, I mean the sign and the thing signified, are united in 
this sacrament, not by any natural copulation, or corporal and local 
existence one in the other ; much less by transubstantiation, or chang- 
ing one into the other ; but by signifying, sealing, and exhibiting the 
one by the other ; that is by a sacramental union, whose bond is the 
promise added to the bread, requiring the faith of the receivers. 
Whence it is clear, that these things in their lawful use, are always 
jointly exhibited and received, but not without faith of the promise, 
viewing and apprehending the thing promised, now present in the 
sacrament ; yet not present or included in the sign as in a vessel con- 
taining it ; but present in the promise, which is the better part, life, 
and soul of the sacrament. For they want judgment who affirm, that 
Christ's body cannot be present in the sacrament, except it be in or 
under the bread ; as if, forsooth, the bread alone, without the promise, 
were either the sacrament, or the principal part of a sacrament." p. 
434. 

" There is then in the Lord's Supper a double meat and drink. One 
external, visible and terrene, namely, bread and wine; and another 
internal. There is also a double eating and receiving; an external and 
signifying, which is the corporal receiving of the bread and wine ; 
that is, which is performed by the hands, mouth, and senses of the 
body ; and an internal, invisible, and signified, which is the fruition of 
Christ's death, and a spiritual ingrafting into Christ's body ; that is, 
which is not performed by the hands and mouth of the body, but by 
the spirit and faith. Lastly, there is a double administrator and dis- 
penser of this meat and drink; an external, of the external, which is 
the minister of the church, delivering by his hand the bread and 



92 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



wine ; and an internal, of the internal meat, which is Christ himself, 
feeding us by his body and blood." p. 470. 

" As therefore the body of Christ signifieth both his proper and 
natural body, and his sacramental body, which is the bread of the 
eucharist ; so the eating of Christ's body is of two sorts ; one sacra- 
mental, of the sign to wit, the external and corporal receiving of the 
bread and wine ; the other real or spiritual, which is the receiving of 
Christ's very body itself. And to believe in Christ dwelling in us 
by faith, is, by the virtue and operation of the Holy Ghost, to be in- 
grafted into his body, as members to the head and branches into the 
vine ; and so to be made partakers of the fruit of the death and life of 
Christ. Whence it is apparent that they are falsely accused who 
thus teach, as if they made either the bare signs only to be in the 
Lord's Sapper, or a participation of Christ's death only, or of his 
benefits, or of the Holy Ghost, excluding the true, real, and spiritual 
communion of the very body of Christ itself." p. 470, 471. 

In an appendix to this part of the work, we find the following 
brief summary of the leading objections, made by the " Consub- 
stantiaries," as they are styled, against the " sincere doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper" as held by those who were nicknamed " Sa- 
cramentaries," together with proper answers. 

"1st Obj. The errors of the Sacramentaries are, that there are but 
bare signs and symbols only in the Supper. 

t "Ans. We teach that the things signified are, together with the 
signs in the right use exhibited and communicated, albeit not corpo- 
rally, but in such sort as is agreeable unto sacraments. 

" 2d Obj . The Sacramentaries say that Christ is present only according 
to his power and efficacy. 

"Ans. We teach that he is present and united with us by the Holy 
Ghost, albeit his body be far absent from us ; like as a whole Christ 
is present also with his ministry, though diversely according to the 
one nature. 

"3d Obj. The Sacramentaries affirm that an imaginary , figurative, 
or spiritual body is present, not his essential body. 

"Ans. We never spake of an imaginary body, but of the true flesh 
of Christ, which is present with us, although it remain in heaven. 
Moreover, we say that we receive the bread and body, but both after 
a manner proper to each. 

" 4th Obj . The Sacramentaries affirm, that the true body of Christ which 
hung on the cross, and his very blood zuhich was shed for us, is distributed 
and is spiritually received of those only who are worthy receivers ; as for 
the unworthy, they receive nothing besides the bare signs, to their own 
condemnation. 

"Ans. All this we grant, as being agreeable to the word of God, 
the nature of sacraments, the analogy of faith, and the communion of 
the faithful."— P. 472. 

In conclusion, a statement is given of the general points 



CALVIN ISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



93 



" wherein the churches which profess the gospel agree or dis- 
agree in the controversy concerning the Lord's Supper." Among 
the points of agreement, the third one mentioned is, " that in the 
Supper we are made partakers not only of the Spirit of Christ 
and his satisfaction, justice, virtue and operation, but also of the 
vert/ essence and substance of his true body and blood, which was 
given for us to death on the cross, and which was shed for us; 
and are truly fed with the self-same unto eternal life: and that 
this very thing Christ should teach and make known unto us, 
by this visible receiving of this bread and wine in his Supper." 
The disagreement is represented to hold in the three following 
particulars. 

" 1. That one part contendeth that these words of Christ, This is 
my body, mast be understood as the words sound, which yet that part 
itself doth not prove; but the other part, that those words must be 
understood sacramentally, according to the declaration of Christ and 
Paul, according to the most certain and infallible rule and level of the 
articles of our Christian faith. 

" 2. That one part will have the body and blood of Christ to be 
essentially in or with the bread and the wine, and so to be eaten that 
together with the bread and wine, out of the hand of the minister, it 
entereth by the mouth of the receivers into their bodies; but the other 
part will have the body of Christ, which in the first Supper sat at the 
table by the disciples, now to be and continue, not here on earth, 
but above in the heavens, and without this visible world and heaven, 
until he descend thence again to judgment, and yet that we notwith- 
standing here on earth, as oft as we eat this bread with a true faith, 
are so fed with his body, and made to drink of his blood, that not 
only through his passion and blood shed, we are cleansed from our 
sins, but are also in such sort coupled, knit, and incorporated into his 
true, essential human body, by his Spirit dwelling both in him and 
us, that we are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones ; and are more 
nearly and firmly knit and united with him than the members of our 
body are united with our head, and so we draw and have in him and 
from him everlasting life. 

" 3. That one part will have all, whosoever come to the table of the 
Lord's Supper, and eat and drink that bread and wine, whether they 
be believers or unbelievers, to eat and drink, corporally and with their 
bodily mouth, the flesh and blood of Christ, believers to life and sal- 
vation, unbelievers to damnation and death; the other holdeth, that 
unbelievers abuse indeed the outward signs, bread and wine, to their 
damnation, but that the faithful only can eat and drink, by a true 
faith, and the fore-alleged working of the Holy Ghost, the body and 
blood of Christ unto eternal life."— P. 480. 

Calvin himself is hardly more explicit, in the statement of his 
own doctrine. We seem to hear, in these quotations, the very 
echo of the words to which we have already listened from his 
lips. It is the testimony, however, of Ursinus, the principal au- 
thor of the Catechism of the Palatinate, speaking cx cathedra of 



04 



TUE 31 VST I C A L PRESENCE. 



the doctrine it was supposed to contain. Where shall we find 
an expositor of its sense more worthy to be trusted and be- 
lieved? 

Hospinian. 

Omitting all other testimony that might still be brought for- 
ward from the sixteenth century as entirely superfluous, after 
what has been already exhibited, I present finally the authority 
of a single Helvetic divine, that may be said to cover at once the 
entire period. I refer to JRodolph Hospinian^ the distinguished 
author of the great work on the History of the Sacrament. His 
theological life was passed in Zurich, and reached from the year 
156S some distance over into the following century. His sym- 
pathies are all, of course, with the Helvetic Church. His whole 
work, however, in the case of the sixteenth century, proceeds 
from beginning to end on the assumption that the Reformed 
doctrine of the eucharist was always, from the very first, what we 
have found it to be in the authorities already quoted; and as 
such not only conformable to the view of Calvin, but in harmony 
even with the proper sense of the Augsburg Confession itself, at 
least as understood by Melancthon and a large part of the Lu- 
theran Church. He refers to Calvin's statements always with 
approbation, as a true representation of what was held and 
taught in the Reformed communion; and will have it, that 
Zuingli himself inculcated, in all substantial respects, the very 
same doctrine. Altogether, it must be admitted that Hospinian 
is wrong, in the general theory on which his work is constructed. 
But this does not affect, of course, the weight of his testimony, as 
it regards the fact with which we are now concerned. Nay, it 
serves only to render it the more worthy of attention. His work 
has the form of an apology for the sacramental orthodoxy of the 
Helvetic church, while the standard by which it is measured is 
always the Calvinistic, as distinguished from the Ubiquitarian 
view. He takes it for granted, that this, and nothing lower than 
this, was, and had been all along, the true and proper doctrine 
of the Reformed Church ; and it is exhibited accordingly always 
under this view. The controversy between the two confessions 
is with him one that relates, not to the question of fact, as it re- 
gards the power of the sacraments, but only to the question of 
mode. Thus, in speaking of the Augsburg Confession, he gives 
the article on the eucharistic presence, as presented in the Wit- 
temberg German text of the year 1531 ; in which it is said, " that 
the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and ivith the 
bread and wine distributed to them that eat, in the Lord's Sup- 
per :" and immediately adds, "These words contain nothing 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



95 



contrary to our view." Afterwards he tells us, still more expli- 
citly : " Ours do not reject the tenth article of the Augsburg 
Confession, in its sound, true, right, pious, and catholic sense, 
as held by the fathers, and all the true Christian saints always 
in the Church ; namely, that in the Lord's Supper, along with the 
bread and wine, that is, while the sacrament of the Lord's body 
and blood is received, there is truly exhibited also the body and 
blood itself of the Lord, to be received by faith. For whilst the 
ministers distribute the sacrament of the body and blood of 
Christ, Christ himself communicates himself to be spiritually 
enjoyed, that the pious may have communion with him and live 
by him." Ho sp. Hist. Sac. Part II. p. 157, 158. 

The Synod of Dort. 

This venerable body was convened in the year 1618, with 
reference particularly to the errors introduced by Arminius. 
It was composed of delegates, not only from the United Pro- 
vinces, but also from England, Switzerland, the Palatinate, 
Hessia, Nassau, East Friesland, and Bremen ; forming in fact 
an oecumenical council of the entire Reformed Church. It was 
not called of course to express any direct judgment on the 
sacramental question. It may be said to have done this indi- 
rectly however, by solemnly endorsing both the Belgic Confes- 
sion and the Heidelberg Catechism, as true and faithful exposi- 
tions in full of the general faith of the Church. The first 
having been submitted previously to a particular examination on 
the part of the different national delegations, was unanimously 
approved in the 146th session ; as containing nothing at variance 
with the word of God, or needing in any way to be changed. 
The other was afterwards laid before the body, with the request 
that it might be tried in the same way. As the result, a decla- 
ration was filed in the name of all present, that " the doctrine 
contained in the Catechism of the Palatinate was found to be 
conformable at all points to the word of God ; that there was 
nothing in it that needed in this view to be changed or cor- 
rected; and that altogether it formed a most accurate compend 
of the orthodox Christian faith, being with singular skill not 
only adjusted to the apprehension of tender youth, but so framed 
also as to serve the purpose of instruction at the same time in 
the case of older persons." — Ada Syn. Nat. Dord. Sess. 
CALVI.p. 302. 

Westminster Confession. 

This belongs to the middle of the seventeenth century. It 
has a different character in some respects, from that which 



96 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



distinguishes the older confessions of the Reformed Church ; 
the result, at least in part, of the Puritanic principle, under 
whose influence, in some measure, it was formed. This in- 
volved from the beginning a tendency, that might be considered 
unfavourable to the idea of the objective and mystical in the life 
of the Church, as it prevailed with both Protestant confessions 
in the age of the Reformation ; and which has since in fact con- 
tributed largely to the production of that false form of thinking, 
that has come to be so general, at the present time, in the oppo- 
site direction. But notwithstanding all this, the doctrine of the 
real presence, in the form now under consideration, appears here 
in its full force. The testimony of course is only of secondary 
weight, in any view, as compared with the symbolical authorities 
of the sixteenth century, to which we have already referred. 
It is still however of special interest, as showing how deeply 
the old Calvinistic doctrine had lodged itself in the heart of 
the Church ; and how full and distinct must have been its pro- 
clamation in the beginning, to which at the distance of a hun- 
dred years, so clear an echo at least is still returned, from the 
very bosom of the Puritan Revolution itself. Let the Confession 
speak for itself. 

" Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in 
this sacrament, do then inwardly also by faith, really and indeed, yet 
not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon 
Christ crucified and all benefits of his death ; the body and blood of 
Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the 
bread and wine ; yet as really but spiritually present to the faith of 
believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their 
outward senses." Chap. 29, § 7. 

Compare with this, as confirming and illustrating still farther 
the same view, the following questions from the Larger Cate- 
chism. 

" Quest. 168. What is the Lord's Supper? 

"Ans. The Lord's Supper is a sacrament of the New Testament, 
wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to the 
appointment of Jesus Christ, his death is showed forth ; and they that 
w T orthily communicate, feed upon his body and blood, to their spiritual 
nourishment and growth in grace ; have their union and communion 
with him confirmed ; testify and renew their thankfulness and engage- 
ment to God, and their mutual love and fellowship with each other, 
as members of the same mystical body." 

" Quest. 170. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord's 
Supper, feed upon the body and blood of Christ therehi ? 

"Ans. As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or car- 
nally present in, with, or under, the bread and wine in the Lord's Sup- 



CALVINIST1C DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



97 



per ; and yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less 
truly and really than the elements themselves are to their outward 
senses ; so they that worthily communicate in the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not 
after a corporal or carnal, but in a spiritual manner; yet truly and 
really, while by faith they receive and apply unto themselves Christ 
crucified, and all the Benefits of his death." 

This, it must be admitted, is not entirely free from ambiguity, 
as compared with the language of the sixteenth century. Taken 
by itself, it might be held to mean nothing more than such a pre- 
sence of Christ's body as is involved in the lively conception of it in 
the worshipper's mind ; though all must feel, that a strange abuse 
of language would be employed, in that case, to express so plain 
a thought. But we need only some tolerable familiarity with the 
Calvinistic theory of the Lord's Supper, as held before this time 
in the Reformed Church, to be fully satisfied that no such poor 
construction as that now mentioned can be entitled to any re- 
spect. It is not simply a real spiritual presence that is here 
affirmed as belonging to the sacrament, but a spiritual real pre- 
sence ; a communication by faith with the body and blood of 
Christ, which involves union and communion with his person 
under such view, and on the ground of this only, a full interest at 
the same time in all the benefits of his death. The term spiritual 
as here used, it must always be borne in mind, carries in it no 
opposition to the idea of substance; nor does it refer to the per- 
son of Christ simply as it is spirit, and not body. On the con- 
trary, it has regard to the inmost substance of his body itself. 
All imagination of a material intermingling of Christ's flesh with 
ours is indeed carefully removed ; but it is only to assert the more 
positively a real participation in the true life of his flesh as such. 
The communion is with the Saviour's body and blood, the very 
essence of which under a spiritual form, is carried over into the 
believer's person. If this be not the meaning of the Westmin- 
ster Assembly ; if in the use of language, borrowed here so 
plainly from the creed of Calvin and the Reformed Church gene- 
rally in the sixteenth century, the Assembly intended to signify 
after all something quite different from that creed, a mere moral 
union with Christ for instance, a communication with him in his 
divine nature simply, or an appropriation only of the merits of 
his life and death ; it will be found very hard, in the first place, 
to put any intelligible sense whatever into their words, and more 
difficult still, in the second place, to vindicate the interpretation 
as worthy either of their wisdom or their truth.* 

* In appealing to the authority of the several Reformed Confessions, no 
notice has been taken directly of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 
England. As this branch of the Protestant communion is considered by many 

9 



98 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE 



Hooker and Owen. 

In conclusion, let me be allowed to refer to the authority of 
two of the most eminent English divines, who lived close upon 
the age of the Reformation, and who may be taken as the most 
prominent representatives of the two great contrary tendencies, 
which the Reformed Church may be said to have involved in its 
constitution from the very start. Hooker and Owen ! How dif- 
ferent in their whole spiritual conformation, and yet how closely 
bound together, notwithstanding, in the last ground of their reli- 
gious life. The one stands forth to our view, the deeply earnest, 
most learned and most indefatigable champion, of all that is com- 
prehended in the idea of the Church. The other is known as 
the no less indefatigable champion of all that is included in the 
idea of religious freedom and individual responsibility. Hooker 
is the great ornament of the English Episcopacy. Owen has 
been styled the prince, the oracle, and the metropolitan of the 
English Independency and Puritanism. The one belongs to 
the close of the sixteenth century; the other flourished amid the 
revolutionary storms of the period that followed. I refer to them 
both as witnesses merely, not as sources of authority in them- 
selves. Hooker was an Episcopalian, with high views of the 
Church; but, as a man of learning, he must be supposed to have 
understood the doctrine of the Reformed Church, as it stood in 
his own time. Owen was a Puritan, with low views of the 

to be somewhat tainted, in its very constitution, with the errors of Rome, it 
seemed best not to lay much stress upon its testimony in the present discus- 
sion. It is remarkable, however, that what may be styled the high sacramental 
doctrine, is not put forward with any special prominence in the teachings of 
this Church, as compared with the view held by the Reformed Church gene- 
rally in the sixteenth century. We find the doctrine, indeed, clearly pro- 
claimed. How could it be otherwise, in the period to which we refer ? 
44 Sacraments ordained of Christ,'? it is said, 44 be certain sure witnesses and 
effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth 
work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and con- 
firm our faith in him." Art. xxv. Though only after an heavenly and spirit- 
ual manner, as distinguished from a mere corporeal eating, still 44 the body of 
Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper." Art. xxviii. So in the Com- 
munion Service, believers in receiving the elements are represented as partak- 
ing of Christ's most blessed body and blood, at the same time. Undoubtedly 
the doctrine of the real presence of Christ by the Spirit, in the Holy Eucharist, 
is plainly taught by the English Church ; and it is only strange that any question 
should ever be made with regard to the point, in the Church itself. But it is no 
less certain, that it has no claim to be considered a distinctively Episcopal 
doctrine, so far at least as the past history of the Reformed Church is con- 
cerned, in any sense. Among all the early Reformed [Confessions, there is 
hardly one in which it is not even more distinctly affirmed than it is in the 
Thirty-nine Articles. The Confession of the Reformed Dutch Church, in 
particular, is decidedly more high-toned here than the formulary of the Church 
of England ; and we may say as much also even of the Westminster Confes- 
sion itself. 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. ( J9 

Church; but this only serves to render the more striking his re- 
sponse to the same truth, in a case where its last echo has ceased 
to be heard with the Puritans of a later day. 

The following passages are extracted from Hooker's great 
work, the Ecclesiastical Polity. 

" It is too cold an interpretation, whereby some men expound our 
being in Christ, to import nothing else, but only that the self-same 
nature which maketh us to be men, is in him, and maketh him man 
as we are. For w T hat man in the world is there, which hath not so 
far forth communion with Jesus Christ ] It is not this that can sus- 
tain the weight of such sentences as speak of the mystery of our co- 
herence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve w T as in 
Adam. Yea, by grace, we are every of us in Christ and in his 
Church, as by nature we are in those our first parents. God made 
Eve of the rib of Adam. And his Church he frameth out of the very 
flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of man. His 
body crucified and his blood shed for the life of the world, are the 
true elements of that heavenly being, which maketh us such as him- 
self is of whom we come. For which cause the words of Adam may 
be fitly the words of Christ concerning his Church, 4 flesh of my flesh, 
and bone of my bones,' a true native extract out of mine own body. 
So that in him even according to his manhood, we according to our 
heavenly being, are as branches in that root out of which they grow." 
Book V, chap, hi. § 7. 

"These things St. Cyril duly considering reproveth their speeches, 
which taught that only the deity of Christ is the vine whereupon we 
by faith do depend as branches, and that neither his flesh nor our 
bodies are comprised in this resemblance. For doth any man doubt, 
but that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do receive that 
life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which 
they are already accounted parts of his blessed body 1 Our corrupti- 
ble bodies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that 
here they are joined with his body which is incorruptible, and that 
his is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing through 
the death and merit of his own flesh that which hindered the life of 
ours. Christ. is therefore, both as God and as man, that true vine, 
whereof we both spiritually and corporally are true branches. The 
mixture of his bodily substance with ours is a thing which the ancient 
Fathers disclaim. Yet the mixture of his flesh with ours, they speak 
of, to signify what our very bodies, through mystical conjunction, 
receive from that vital efficacy which we know to be in his ; and from 
bodily mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the 
truth than the manner of coherence between his sacred and the sancti- 
fied bodies of saints." B. V. c. lvi. § 9. 

" This was it that some did exceedingly fear, lest Zuinglius and 
(Ecolampadius would bring to pass, that men should account of this 
sacrament but only as of a shadow, destitute, empty, and void of 
Christ. But seeing that by opening the several opinions which have 
been held, they are grown for aught I can see on all sides at the length 
to a general agreement concerning that which alone is material, namely 
the real participation of Christ, and of life in his body and blood by 



100 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



means of this sacrament wherefore should the world continue still dis- 
tracted and rent with so manifold contentions, when there remaineth 
now no controversy saving only about the subject where Christ is 1 
Yea, even in this point no side denieth but that the soul of man is the 
receptacle of Christ's presence. Whereby the question is yet driven 
to a narrower issue, nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this, whether 
when the sacrament is administered Christ be whole within man only, 
or else his body and blood be also externally seated in the very con- 
secrated elements themselves ; which opinion they that defend, are 
driven either to consubstantiate and incorporate Christ with elements 
sacramental, or to transubstantiate and change their substance into his; 
and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with the 
substance of those elements, the other to hide him under the only 
visible show of bread and wine, the substance whereof, as they ima- 
gine, is abolished, and his succeeded in the same room." B. V. c. 
Ixvii. § 2. 

" It is on all sides plainly confessed, first, that this sacrament is a 
true and a real participation of Christ, who thereby imparteth himself, 
even his whole entire person as a mystical Head unto every soul that 
receiveth him, and that every such receiver doth incorporate or unite 
himself unto Christ as a mystical member of him, yea of them also 
whom he acknowiedgeth to be his own ; secondly, that to whom the 
person of Christ is thus communicated, to them he giveth by the same 
sacrament his Holy Spirit to sanctify them as it sanctifieth him which 
is their head ; thirdly, that what merit, force, or virtue soever there is 
in his sacrificed body and blood, we freely, fully, and wholly have it by 
this sacrament ; fourthly, that the effect there* f in us is a real transmu- 
tation of our souls and bodies from sin to righteousness, from death and 
corruption to immortality and life ; fifthly, that because the sacrament 
being of itself but a corruptible and earthly creature, must needs be 
thought an unlikely instrument to work so admirable effects in man, 
we are therefore to rest ourselves altogether upon the strength of his 
glorious power, who is able and will bring to pass that the bread and 
cup which he giveth us shall be truly the thing he promiseth. 

44 It seemeth therefore much amiss that against them whom they 
term Sacramentaries, so many invective discourses are made, all run- 
ning upon two points, that the Eucharist is not a bare sign or figure 
only, and that the efficacy of his body and blood is not all we receive 
in this sacrament. For no man having read their books and writings 
which are thus traduced, can be ignorant that both these assertions 
they plainly confess to be most true. They do not so interpret the 
words of Christ, as if the name of his body did import but the figure 
of his body, and to be were only to signify his blood. They grant 
that these holy mysteries received in due manner do instrumentally 
both make us partakers of the grace of that body and blood which 
w r ere given for the life of the world, and besides also impart unto us 
even in true and real though mystical manner the very person of our 
Lord himself, whole, perfect, and entire, as hath been showed." B. 
V. c. Ixvii. § 7, 8. 

Let us now turn to Dr. Owen. It is easy to feel ourselves in 
a different element here, from that which formed the inward life 



CALV1NISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 101 



of Hooker. The whole system of the great nonconformist tended 
to carry him towards an incorporeal spiritualism in religion, that 
might be counted particularly unfavourable to a right estimate 
of the sacraments. Still, however, when we contrast his lan- 
guage with the frigid, rationalistic style in which the same sys- 
tem is accustomed to express itself on this subject at the present 
day, we can hardly fail to be surprised with the difference. The 
following passages are taken from his " Sacramental Discourses," 
as contained in Vol. XVII. of his Works, Russel's London 
edition. 

44 Christ is present with us in an especial manner in this ordinance. 
One of the greatest engines that ever the devil made use of to over- 
throw the faith of the Church, was by forging such a presence of 
Christ as is not truly in this ordinance, to drive us off from looking 
after that presence which is true. I look upon it as one of the great- 
est engines that ever hell set on work. It is not a corporeal presence ; 
there are innumerable arguments against that ; every thing that is in 
sense, reason, and the faith of a man, overthrows that corporeal pre- 
sence." — 46 Christ is present in this ordinance in an especial manner 
in three ways : by representation ; by exhibition ; by obsignation or 
sealing." Disc. x. p. 209, 210. 

44 Christ is present with us by way of exhibition ; that is, he doth 
really tender and exhibit himself unto the souls of believers in this 
ordinance, which the world hath lost, and knows not what to make 
of it. They exhibit that which they do not contain. This bread doth 
not contain the body of Christ, or the flesh of Christ ; the cup doth not 
contain the blood of Christ ; but they exhibit them ; both do as really 
exhibit them to believers, as they partake of the outward signs. Cer- 
tainly we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ doth not invite us unto 
this table for the bread that perishes, for outward food ; it is to feed 
our souls. What do we think then ? doth he invite us unto an 
empty, painted feast 1 do w T e deal so with our friends 1 Here is some- 
thing really exhibited by Jesus Christ unto us to receive, beside the 
outward pledges of bread and wine. We must not think the Lord 
Jesus Christ deludes our souls with empty shows and appearances. 
That which is exhibited is himself, it is his 4 flesh as meat indeed, 
and his blood as drink indeed ;' it is himself as broken and crucified 
that he exhibits unto us." — 44 Christ doth exhibit himself unto our 
souls, if we are not wanting unto ourselves, for these two things, 
incorporation and nourishment; to be received into union; and to 
give strength unto our souls." Ib. p. 211, 212. 

44 As it is plain from the sign and the thing signified that there is a 
grant, or a real communication of Jesus Christ unto the souls of them 
that helieve, so it is evident from the nature of the exercise of faith in 
this ordinance ; it is by eating and drinking. Can you eat and drink 
unless something be really communicated 1 Ycu are called to eat the 
flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man ; unless really commu- 
nicated, we cannot eat it nor drink it. We may have other apprehen- 
sions of these things, but our faith cannot be exercised in eating and 

9* 



102 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



drinking-, which is a receiving of what is really exhibited and com- 
municated. As truly my brethren as we do eat of this bread and 
drink of this cup, which is really communicated to us, so every true 
believer doth receive Christ, his body and blood, in all the benefits 
of it, that are really exhibited by God unto the soul in this ordinance, 
and it is a means of communicating to faith." Disc, xxiii. p. 265. 

" It is a common received notion among Christians, and it is true, 
that there is a peculiar communion with Christ in this ordinance, 
which we have in no other ordinance ; that there is a peculiar acting 
of faith in this ordinance which is in no other ordinance. This is 
the faith of the whole Church of Christ, and has been so in all ages. 
This is the greatest mystery of all the practicals of our Christian re- 
ligion, a way of receiving Christ by eating and drinking, something 
peculiar that is not in prayer, that is not in the hearing of the word, 
nor in any other part of divine worship whatsoever ; a peculiar partici- 
pation of Christ, a peculiar acting of faith towards Christ. This par- 
ticipation of Christ is not carnal, but spiritual. In the beginning of 
the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he began to instruct 
them in the communication of himself, and the benefit of his media- 
tion, to believers, because it was a new thing, he expresses it by eat- 
ing his *flesh and drinking his blood, John vi. 53, 4 Unless ye eat the 
flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life in you.' 
This offended and amazed them. They thought he taught them to 
eat his natural flesh and blood. 6 How can this man give us his flesh 
to eat V They thought he instructed them to be cannibals. Where- 
upon he gives that everlasting rule for the guidance of the Church, 
which the Church forsook, and thereby ruined itself; saith he, 6 It is 
the Spirit that quickens ; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I 
speak, they are spirit, and they are life.' It is a spiritual communi- 
cation, saith he, of myself unto you ; but it is as intimate, and gives 
as real an incorporation, as if you did eat my flesh and drink my 
blood."— Disc. xxv. p. 268. 

" The fourth thing is the mysteriousness, which I leave to your ex- 
perience, for it is beyond expression, the mysterious reception of 
Christ in this peculiar way of exhibition. There is a reception of 
Christ as tendered in the promise of the Gospel, but here is a peculiar 
way of his exhibition under outward signs, and a mysterious recep- 
tion of him in them really, so as to come to a real substantial incor- 
poration in our souls." Ib. p. 270. 

All this, it must be confessed, is not without some measure of 
ambiguity, as it regards a real participation in the substance of 
Christ's humanity. It falls short altogether of the firm, clear 
utterances of Calvin and the Church of the sixteenth century. 
But it is full of force from such a man as Owen, in the age of 
Cromwell and the English Commonwealth. Here we have at 
least, in strong terms, the sense of an objective force, a true ex- 
hibition of the thing signified, in the sacrament. The commu- 
nion, moreover, is specific, mystical, bound to the ordinance 
as its medium and instrument. Then it involves a real incor- 



CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 103 



poration into Christ; and it is plainly felt, that this includes a 
special respect to his human nature, his flesh and blood, as given 
for the life of the world. But just at this point the representa- 
tion is found to waver. The truth that struggles for utterance, 
is still embarrassed by the abstractions of the understanding, and 
is not permitted to come to a full, unfaltering expression. 



CHAPTER IT. 

THE MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



SECTION I. 

HISTORICAL EXHIBITION. 

It cannot be denied that the view generally entertained of the 
Lord's Supper at the present time, in the Protestant Church, in- 
volves a wide departure from the faith of the sixteenth century 
with regard to the same subject. The fact must be at once clear 
to every one at all familiar with the religious world as it now 
exists, as soon as he is made to understand in any measure the 
actual form in which the sacramental doctrine was held in the 
period just mentioned. 

This falling away from the creed of the Reformation is not 
confined to any particular country or religious confession. It 
has been most broadly displayed among the continental churches 
of Europe, in the form of that open, rampant rationalism, which has 
there to so great an extent triumphed over the old orthodoxy at so 
many other points. But it is found widely prevalent also in Great 
Britain and in this country. It is especially striking, of course, 
as has been already remarked, in the case of the Lutheran Church, 
which was distinguished from the other Protestant confession, in 
the beginning, mainly by its high view of the Lord's Supper, and 
the zeal it showed in opposition to what it stigmatized reproach- 
fully as sacramentarian error. In this respect, it can hardly be 
recognized indeed as the samecommunion. The original name re- 
mains, but the original distinctive character is gone. Particularly 
is this the case, with a large part at least, of the Lutheran Church 
in our own country. We cannot say of it simply, that it has 
been led to moderate the old sacramental doctrine of the church, 
as exhibited in the Form of Concord; it has abandoned the doc- 
trine altogether. Not only is the true Lutheran position, as oc- 
cupied so violently against the Calvinists in the sixteenth century, 
openly and fully renounced ; but the Calvinistic ground itself, 
then shunned with so much horror as the very threshold of in- 
fidelity, has come to be considered as also in unsafe contiguity 



106 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



with Rome. With no denomination do we find the anti-mystical 
tendency, usually charged upon the Reformed Church, more de- 
cidedly developed. Methodism itself can hardly be said to make 
less account of the sacraments, practically or theoretically. A 
strange contradiction surely, which, we may trust, is not des- 
tined always to endure. For it is not to be imagined that such 
an utter abandonment of the Lutheran principle in the case of 
the Lord's Supper, can be confined to this single point. Cen- 
tral as the doctrine of the sacrament is to the whole Christian 
system, (so felt to be especially by Luther,) such a change neces- 
sarily implies a change that extends much farther. The whole 
life of the Church, in these circumstances, must be brought into 
contradiction to its own proper principle. It cannot be true to 
itself. This of course we regard as a fit subject for lamentation. 
Never was there a time when it was more important, that this 
Church should understand and fulfil her own mission; and in no 
part of the world perhaps is this more needed than just here in 
America, where the tendency to undervalue all that is sacra- 
mental and objective in religion, has become unhappily so 
strong.* 

* It is not intended, of course, to involve all connected with the Church, 
indiscriminately, in this censure. There are many excellent men belonging 
to it, no doubt, who feel and deplore the very evil which is here brought into 
view; and it is to be trusted, that these will yet cause their influence to be 
felt, in such a way as to roll off at last, in some measure at least, the reproach 
now resting upon the Church. For that room exists in fact for this reproach, 
cannot be seriously questioned by any one acquainted with the religious pos- 
ture of the country, and it cannot be taken amiss therefore that it should be 
noticed in this public way. It is notorious that the American Lutheran 
Church, under its principal and most influential exhibition at least, has given 
up altogether the sacramental doctrine of Luther, and along with this, (for the 
two things can never be sundered,) the original genius and life of the Lutheran 
Confession. It is regarded by others as an evangelical improvement in the 
character and state of the Church, that it has become in this respect hopefully 
conformed to what may be styled the Modern Puritan theory of religion, with 
a strong inclination even to Methodism; and the same idea would seem to be 
very extensively entertained in the bosom of the Church itself. We have a right 
to take the so called Lutheran Observer, as an index of the prevailing tone of 
thinking in the Church, in this case. It is not, indeed, strictly speaking, under 
any ecclesiastical direction and control. The editor's responsibilities are all 
his own. Still, however, the mere fact that the paper is allowed to represent 
the Church before the world, constitutes it properly the organ of the body, 
and the accredited interpreter of its views. But now the Observer, besides 
being characteristically un-Lutheran in other respects, openly derides the 
whole idea of a real communion with the humanity of Christ as an exploded 
superstition! Thus, for instance, referring to the Reformed or Calvinistic 
view as asserted at Mercersburg, the editor does not hesitate, in his paper of 
Dec. 5, 1845, to use such language as the following: "Dr. N.'s doctrine of 
Con-corporation, alias his semi-Romanism in relation to the Eucharist." — "The 
Mercersburg effort to revive the errors of by-gone ages, from which it was 
fondly hoped our American Churches had finally and forever escaped." — 
e< That figment of the imagination, that poor, low, mystical, confused, carnal 
and antiquated doctrine, yclept con-corporation ! Only think of it — the literal 
communication of Christ's glorified humanity to the believer, thus confound- 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



107 



But it is not the Lutheran Church only, which has fallen 
away from its original creed, in the case of the Lord's Supper. 
Though the defection may not be so immediately palpable and 
open to all observation, it exists with equal certainty, as was 
said before, on the part of the Reformed Church. It does so for 
the most part in Europe; and in this country the case is, to say 
the least, no better. Our sect system must be considered, in its 
very nature, unfavourable to all proper respect for the sacraments. 
This may be taken, indeed, as a just criterion of the spirit of 
sect, as distinguished from the true spirit of the Christian church. 
In proportion as the sect character prevails, it will be found that 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are looked upon as mere out- 
ward signs, in the case of which all proper efficacy is supposed 
to be previously at hand in the inward state of the subject by 
whom they are received. It is this feeling which leads so gene- 
rally to the rejection of infant baptism, on the part of those who 
affect to improve our Christianity in the way of new schisms. 
It is particularly significant, moreover, in the aspect now con- 
sidered, that the Baptist body, as such, is numerically stronger 
than any other denomination in the country. But the baptistic 
principle prevails more extensively still ; for it is very plain that 
all true sense of the sacramental value of baptism is wanting, in 
large portions of the church, where the ordinance is still re- 
tained ; and the consequence is, that it is employed to the same 
extent as a merely outward and traditional form. Along with 
this, of course, must prevail an unsacramental feeling generally, 
by which the Lord's Supper also is shorn of all its significance 
and power. Methodism, in this way, may be said to wrong the 
sacraments, (as also the entire idea of the Church?) almost as 
seriously as the Baptist system itself. The general evil, how- 
ever, reaches still farther. Even those denominations among 
us which represent the Reformed Church by true and legitimate 

ing the natures of believers and of Christ, and actually predicating ubiquity 
of humanity! The glorified body of Christ received by the believer with the 
bread and wine ! If this be not a corporeal presence, what meaning is there 
in language? if this is not equal to Puseyism, and an immense stride toward 
Romanism, we would like to krrtfw^vTiaTTs ?» — "It grates upon the ear, jars 
the feelings, offends the understanding, and unhinges the holiest associations 
of many of the best and most spiritual [sic !] men, in the most evangelic 
churches." — Such is the style in which, not the old Lutheran, but the old 
Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper, is profanely abused by the principal 
paper in the present American Lutheran Church ! Multitudes in that Church, 
of course, have been pained and mortified by such bare-faced ecclesiastical 
infidelity. They disclaim all sympathy with it in their hearts, and protest 
against it quietly as downright treason to all true Lutheranism. Still, the 
paper is endured, as the organ, in fact, of the Church ; and until something 
more effectual than a mere silent protest is exhibited, we must mourn over the 
Church itself as being, it is to be feared, but too faithfully represented by the 
so-called Lutheran Observer. 



10S 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



descent, such as the Presbyterian in its different branches, and 
the Reformed Dutch, show plainly that they have fallen away, 
to some extent, from the original faith of the church, in the same 
direction. Remains of it indeed may still be found in the pri- 
vate piety of many, the result, in part, of their special advantage 
in the way of early traditional education, and in part the product 
of their own religious life itself ;* but, so far as the general 
reigning belief is concerned, the old doctrine may be said to be 
fairly suppressed by one of a different character. It is so theo- 
retically, to a great extent, in our systems of theology, biblical 
expositions, sermons, and religious teaching generally, so far as 
the sacramental question is concerned. It is so practically, to 
an equal extent, in the corresponding views and feelings with 

* There is much comfort in this thought. The same reflection, only in 
somewhat stronger terms, is made by Prof. Tayler Lewis, of New York, trt 
his admirable article on the Church Question, published in the Bib. Repository , 
for Jan., 1S46. The idea of the mystical union, he says correctly, is, and ever 
must be, a living principle in the hearts of all evangelical Christians. He 
appeals, accordingly, to the devotional books of the Scottish Church, and even 
to the common phraseology of Wesleyan prayer meetings, as serving to show 
a more active sense of the truth itself in the form of life, than is to be found 
under all the outward display which may be made of the tenet by Rome cr 
Oxford, as a dead relic of antiquity. " The life may be stronger than the 
dogma. Even in the absence of definite conceptions, the extreme fondness 
of a certain class of minds for this language, manifests the current of the 
affections in distinction from the speculative views maintained, and a con- 
sciousness, that even if there be a figure, it is figurative of a reality more pre- 
cious and glorious than was ever set forth in any form of rationalism." This 
is very true. Dr. Lewis, however, himself admits, that there has been a great 
falling away on the part of the Church at large, from the faith of the Refor- 
mation as well as of primitive Christianity, with regard to this point ; and that, 
as a dogma at least, the truth is not now generally maintained. I must be- 
lieve, too, that he overrates, in some measure, the extent to which it is prac- 
tically felt. It is to be borne in mind always, that every truth in Christianity 
finds its counterfeit and shadow, in the religious life contemplated under a 
lower view. It is the absolute reality of what we meet elsewhere, under the 
form of mere prophecy or nisus. Now the very idea of religion, no matter 
how defective, involves a demand for union with God. Of course, when pow- 
erfully excited, in connection with Christianity, it can hardly fail to make this 
thought prominent in some way. And all this certainly constitutes a strong 
argument for the truth itself which it is thus attempted to reach. But there 
is a constant tendency, within the Christian sphere as well as beyond it, to 
substitute here the phantasm for the reality itself ; as we may see in the case 
of the Anabaptists and Quakers. Much of the experience of Methodist prayer 
meetings, it is to be feared, labors under the same defect of unreality ; and, 
universally, there is danger of this, where religion is suffered to run out into 
the simply subjective form, with little or no regard to the sacraments and the 
true idea of the Church. The piety of the old Scotch divines, is of a far more 
substantial order; and we have reason to be thankful that the life and power 
of it are still felt, in the case of this doctrine of the mystical union, far more 
extensively than the doctrine itself is either understood or acknowledged. 
But this want of proportion between life and doctrine, is itself a great evil ; 
especially now when the strong tide of rationalistic error, arrogating to itself 
the title of Protestant orthodoxy, is threatening to rarefy and spiritualize the 
whole truth into a sheer moral abstraction. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



109 



which the use of the sacraments is maintained on the part of 
professing Christians. Not only is the old doctrine rejected, but 
it has become almost lost even to the knowledge of the Church. 
When it is brought into view, it is not believed, perhaps, that 
the Reformed Church ever held or taught, in fact, any doctrine 
of the sort; or if it be yielded at length, that Calvin and some 
others maintained some such view, it is set down summarily as 
one of those instances in which the work of the Reformation 
appears still clogged with a measure of Popish superstition, 
brought over from that state of darkness and bondage which had 
just been left behind. In this view, the doctrine is considered 
to be of no force whatever for the Church, in her present condi- 
tion of gospel light and liberty. It is unintelligible and absurd : 
savors of transubstantiation ; exalts the flesh at the expense of 
the spirit. A real presence of the whole Christ in the Lord's 
Supper, under any form, is counted a hard saying, not to be en- 
dured by human reason, and contrary to God's word. Thus it 
stands with our churches generally. Even in the Episcopal 
Church, with all the account it professes to make of the sacra- 
ments, few are willing to receive in full such representations of 
the eucharistic presence, as are made either by Hooker or 
Calvin. 

To feel at once the full force of the representation now made, 
it is only necessary to observe the style in which it is usual, at 
the present time, to speak of the sacraments in general, and of 
the Lord's Supper in particular, as compared with the language 
of the Church on the same subject in the period of the Reforma- 
tion. The following extracts, taken from several of our popular 
modern theological writers, will be acknowledged, no doubt, to 
be a fair representation of the view, which is now too commonly 
entertained among us, on the subject to which they refer. 

" The sacraments are also said to seal the blessings that they sig- 
nify; and accordingly they are called not only signs but seals. It 
is a difficult matter to explain, and clearly to state the difference be- 
tween these two words, or to show what is contained in a seal that 
is not in a sign. Some think that it is distinction without a differ- 
ence." -"If we call them confirming seals, we intend nothing else 

hereby but that God has, to the promises that are given to us in his 
word, added these ordinances; not only to bring to mind this great 
doctrine, that Christ has redeemed his people by his blood, but to 
assure them that they who believe in him shall be made partakers of 
this blessing; so that these ordinances are a pledge thereof to thern, 
in which respect God has set his seal, whereby in an objective way 
he gives believers to understand, that Christ and his benefits are theirs ; 
and they are obliged at the same time by faith, as well as in an ex- 
ternal manner, to signify their compliance with his covenant, which 

\9 



110 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



we may call their setting to their seal that God is true."— Ridgely's 
Body of Divinity {Philadelphia edition of 1815), Vol. IV. p. 163, 165. 

"Thus concerning Christ's death, showed forth or signified in this 
ordinance. We are farther, under this head, to consider how he is 
present, and they who engage in it aright feed on his body and blood 
by faith. We are not to suppose that Christ is present in a corporal 
way, so that we should be said to partake of his body in a literal 
sense ; but he being a divine person, and consequently omnipresent, 
and having promised his presence with his Church in all ages and 
places, when met together in his name ; in this respect he is present 
with them, in like manner as he is in other ordinances, to supply 
their wants, hear their prayers, and strengthen them against corrup- 
tion and temptation, and remove their guilt by the application of his 
blood, whicli is presented as an object for their contemplation in a 
more peculiar manner in this ordinance. 

"As for our feeding on, or being nourished by the body and 
blood of Christ, these are metaphorical expressions, taken from and 
adapted to the nature and quality of the bread and wine by which it 
is signified ; but that which we are to understand hereby is, our graces 
being farther strengthened and established, and we enabled to exer- 
cise them with greater vigour and delight; and this derived from 
Christ, and particularly founded on his death. And when we are said 
to feed upon him in order hereunto, it denotes the application of what 
he has done and suffered to ourselves ; and in order hereunto we are 
to bring our sins, with all the guilt that attends them, as it were, to 
the foot of the cross of Christ, confess and humble our souls for 
them before him, and by faith plead the virtue of his death, in order 
to our obtaining forgiveness, and at the same time renew our dedica- 
tion to him, while hoping and praying for the blessing and privileges 
of the covenant of grace, which were purchased by him." — Ibid. p. 
245. 

"There is in the Lord's Supper a mutual solemn profession of the 
two parties transacting the covenant of grace, and visibly united in 
that covenant; the Lord Christ by his minister on the one hand, and 
the communicants (who are professing believers) on the other. The 
administrator of the ordinance acts in the quality of Christ's minister, 
acts in his name, as representing him ; and stands in the place where 
Christ himself stood, at the first administration of this sacrament, and 
in the original institution of the ordinance. Christ, by the speeches 
and actions of the minister, makes a solemn profession of his part in 
the covenant of grace ; he exhibits the sacrifice of his body broken 
and his blood shed ; and in the minister's offering the sacramental 
bread and wine to the communicants, Christ presents himself to the 
believing communicants as their propitiation and bread of life ; and 
by these outward signs confirms and seals his sincere engagements 
to be their Saviour and food, and to impart to them all the benefits of 
his propitiation and salvation. And they, in receiving what is offered, 
and eating and drinking the symbols of Christ's body and blood, also 
profess their part in the covenant of grace ; they profess to embrace 
the promises and lay hold of the hope set before them, to receive the 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



Ill 



atonement, to receive Christ as their spiritual food, and to feed upon 

him in their hearts by faith." "The sacramental elements in the 

Lord's Supper do represent Christ as a party in covenant, as truly as 
a proxy represents a prince to a foreign lady in her marriage ; and our 
taking- those elements is as truly a professing to accept Christ, as in 
the other case the lady's taking the proxy is her professing to accept 
the prince as her husband. Or the matter may be more fitly repre- 
sented by this similitude : — it is as if a prince should send an ambas- 
sador to a woman in a foreign land, proposing marriage, and by his 
ambassador should send her his picture, and should desire her to mani- 
fest her acceptance of his suit, not only by professing her acceptance 
in words to his ambassador, but in token of her sincerity, openly to 
take or accept that picture, and to seal her profession by thus repre- 
senting the matter over again by a symbolical action." — President 
Edwards. On Full Communion. Works, (New York, 1844,) Vol. I. p. 
145, 146. 

" The elements of this ordinance are bread and wine. The bread con- 
secrated and broken represents the broken body of Christ, in his death 
on the cross. The wine poured out represents his blood in his death, 
which was shed for the remission of sins. The professed followers of 
Christ, by eating the bread and drinking the wine,when consecrated and 
blessed by prayer and thanksgiving, and distributed to them by the 
officers of the church, do by this transaction profess cordially to re- 
ceive Christ by faith, and to live upon him, loving him, and trusting 
in him for pardon and complete redemption, consecrating themselves 
to his service. And by the ministers of the gospel consecrating those 
elements, and ordering them to be distributed to the communicants, 
Christ is exhibited as an all-sufficient Saviour, and the promise of 
salvation is expressed and sealed to all his friends. This is therefore 
a covenant transaction, in which those who partake of the bread and 
wine express their faith in Christ, that they are his friends, and de- 
voted to his service, and their cordial compliance with the covenant 
of grace, and solemnly seal this covenant by partaking of these ele- 
ments. And at the same time they are a token and seal of the cove- 
nant of grace on the part of Christ." — Br. Samuel Hopkins. System 
of Theology, Second edition, Boston, 1811. Vol. II. p. 343. 

"At the Lord's table Christ, by the mouth of his minister says, 
This is my body, take ye, eat ye all of it. This is my blood, take ye, 
drink ye all of it. Hereby sealing to the truth contained in the 4 writ- 
ten instrument.' But it is therein written in so many words : 4 1 am 
the living bread which came down from heaven ; if any man eat of 
this bread, he shall live forever ; and the bread that I- will give him 
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. He that eateth 
my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.' John 
vi. 51, 56. Thus it is written, and thus it is sealed on Christ's part. 
On the other hand, the communicant by his practice declares : 4 1 take 
his flesh, and eat it; I take his blood and drink it;' and seals the 
covenant on his part. And thus the 4 written instrument ' is exter- 
nally and visibly sealed, ratified, and confirmed, on both sides, with 
as much formality as any 4 written instrument' is mutually sealed by 



112 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the parties in any covenant among men. And now if both parties 
are sincere in the covenant thus sealed, and if both abide by and act 
according to it, the communicant will be saved." — Bellamy, Works, 
Vol. IB. p. 166. 

Br. I) wight has much to say of the Lord's Supper. In speaking 
of its design, he tells us that it is intended, first, to represent the great 
sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Sensible impressions go far beyond 
those made directly on the understanding. In no other ordinance is 
this truth so fully realized as in the Lord's Supper. " The breaking 
of the bread, and the pouring out of the wine, exhibit the sacrifice of 
Christ with a force, a liveliness of representation, confessed by all 
Christians, at all times; and indeed by most others also; and unrival- 
led in its efficacy even by the Passover itself. All the parts of this 
service are perfectly simple, and are contemplated by the mind with- 
out the least distraction or labour. The symbols are exact, and most 
lively portraits of the affecting original, and present to us the cruci- 
fixion, and the sufferings of the great subject of it, as again undergone 
before our eyes. We are not barely taught; we see and hear, and of 
consequence feel, that Christ our Passover was slain for us, and died 
on the cross that we might live." " So those doctrines of the Chris- 
tian system, which are most intimately connected with it, are here ex- 
hibited with a corresponding clearness." " In this solemn ordi- 
nance, these truths are in a sense visible. The guilt of sin is here 
written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond. Christ in 
a sense ascends the cross; is nailed to the accursed tree; is pierced 
with the spear ; and pours out his blood to wash away the sins of 
men. Thus, in colours of life and death, we here behold the won- 
derful scene in which was laid on him the iniquity of us all." The 
other purposes of the institution, treated of at length, are as follows : 
It is a standing proof of Christ's mission; it exhibits the purity of 
Christ's character; it admonishes Christians of the second coming of 
Christ; it unites them in a known, public, and efficacious bond of 
union; it is a visible and affecting pledge of Christ's love to his fol- 
lowers ; it is suited also to edify Christians in the divine life ; " The 
edification of Christians is the increase of justness in their views, of 
purity and fervour in their affections, and of faithfulness in their con- 
duct, with regard to the objects of religion. To this increase, in all 
respects, the Lord's Supper naturally and eminently contributes." — 
BwighPs Theology, Serm. CLX. 

The motives which should influence us to the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper are stated to be— 1. The command of Christ; 2. The 
honour of Christ ; 3. The benefits derived from it by the Church ; 
4. Our own personal good. "At the table of Christ chiefly, after their 
baptism, Christians are seen, and see each other, as a public body, as 
mutual friends, and as followers of the Lamb. Here, mutually, they 
give and receive countenance and resolution ; worship together as 
Christians only; rejoice together; weep together; and universally 
exercise the Christian graces, invigorated, refined, and exalted by the 
sympathy of the gospel. Here the social principle of the intelligent 
nature ascends to the highest pitch of dignity and excellence, of which 
in this world it is capable. Mind here refines, enlarges, and ennobles 



MODERN PUKITAN THEORY. 



113 



mind ; virtue purifies and elevates virtue ; and evangelical friendship 
not only finds and makes friends, but continually renders them more 
and more worthy of the name." — — " No exercises of the Christian 
life are ordinarily more pure, vigorous, and evangelical, than those 
which are experienced at the sacramental table. The sense which we 
here feel of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, is apt to be vivid 
and impressive in an unusual degree. Equally impressive are the 
views which we form of forgiving, redeeming, and sanctifying love. 
Here godly sorrow for sin is powerfully awakened. Here are strongly 
excited complacency in the divine character, admiration of the riches 
of divine grace, and gratitude for the glorious interference of Christ in 
becoming the propitiation of our sins. Here brotherly love is kindled 
into a flame ; and benevolence, warm, generous, and expansive, learns 
to encircle the whole family of Adam, Here, more perhaps than any 
where else, Christians have the same mind which vjas also in Christ, and 
prepare themselves to walk as he walked. Every evangelical affection 
becomes vigorous and active, virtuous resolutions stable, and the pur- 
poses of the Christian life exalted." " The ends proposed in the 

institution of the Lord's Supper by the Redeemer of mankind, are cer- 
tainly of a most benevolent and glorious nature, and peculiarly wor- 
thy of the All-perfect Mind. They are the enlargement and rectifica- 
tion of our views concerning the noblest of all subjects, the purifica- 
tion of our affections, and the amendment of our lives. The means 
by which these ends are accomplished, are equally efficacious and de- 
sirable. They are at the same time simple, intelligible to the hum- 
blest capacity, in no respect burdensome, lying-within the reach of all 
men, incapable of being misconstrued without violence, and therefore 
not easily susceptible of mystical or superstitious perversion. Tn their 
own proper, undisguised nature, they appeal powerfully to the senses, 
the imagination, and the heart, and at the same time enlighten, in the 
happiest manner, the understanding. Accordingly, Christians in all 
ages have regarded this sacrament with the highest veneration ; have 
gone to the celebration with hope ; attended it with delight ; and left 
it with improvement in the evangelical character." — Dwighfs The- 
ology. Serrn. CLXI. 

Dr. Dick endorses and accepts in full the opinion of Zuingli on the 
Lord's Supper, which he affirms to have been this : " That the bread 
and wine were no more than a representation of the body and blood of 
Christ; or in other words, the signs appointed to denote the benefits 
that were conferred upon mankind in consequence of the death of 
Christ ; that therefore Christians derive no other fruit from the parti- 
cipation of the Lord's Supper, than a mere commemoration and re- 
membrance of the merits of Christ, and that there is nothing in the 
ordinance but a memorial of Christ." There seems to have been a 
disposition in that age, he thinks, " to believe that there was a pre- 
sence of Christ in the eucharist, different from his presence in the 
other ordinances of the gospel ; an undefined something which corre- 
sponded to the strong language used at the institution of the Supper, 
This is my body — this is my blood. Acknowledging it to be figurative, 
many still thought that a mystery was couched under it. It was not 
indeed easy for those who had long been accustomed to the notion of 

10* 



114 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the bodily presence of Christ, at once to simplify their ideas ; and 
perhaps too they were induced to express themselves as they did, with 
a view to give less offence to the Lutherans. Whatever was their 
motive, their language is not always sufficiently guarded." Calvin 
was one of the brightest ornaments of the Reformation, and in learn- 
ing, genius, and zeal, had few equals, and no superior. Yet he too 
falls into this condemnation. A passage is quoted, which it is found 
impossible to understand. " It supposes a communion of believers 
in the human nature of our Saviour, in the eucharist; and endeavours 
to remove the objection arising from distance of place, by a reference 
to the almighty power of the Spirit, much in the same way as Papists 
and Lutherans solve the difficulty attending their respective systems. 
If Calvin had meant only that in the Sacred Supper believers have 
fellowship with Christ in his death, he would have asserted an im- 
portant truth, attested by the experience of the people of God in every 
age ; but why did he obscure it, and destroy its simplicity, by involv- 
ing it in ambiguous language 1 If he had any thing different in view ; 
if he meant that there is some mysterious communication with his 
human nature, we must be permitted to say that the notion was as 

incomprehensible to himself as it is to his readers." " Stript 

of all metaphorical terms, the action must mean, that in the believing 
and grateful commemoration of his death, we enjoy the blessings 
which were purchased by it, in the same manner in which we enjoy 
them when we exercise faith in hearing the gospel. Why then should 
any man talk as Calvin does, of some inexplicable communion in this 
ordinance with the human nature of Christ ; and tell us that although 
it seems impossible, on account of the distance to which he is removed 
from us, we are not to measure the power of the Divine Spirit by our 
standard ] I am sure that the person who speaks so, conveys no idea 
into the minds of those whom he addresses ; and I am equally certain 

that he does not understand himself." — " There is an absurdity 

in the notion, that there is any communion with the body and blood 
of Christ, considered in themselves ; that he intended any such thing ; 

or that it could be of any advantage to us." " When our Church 

therefore says, that ' the body and blood are as really, but spiritually, 
present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements 
themselves are to their outward senses,' and that they ' feed upon his 
body and blood to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace,' 
it can mean only, that our incarnate suffering Saviour is apprehended 
by their minds, through the instituted signs ; and that by faith they 
enjoy peace and hope ; or it means something unintelligible and un- 
scriptural." This looks to the Westminster Confession, The lan- 
guage of the Gallic or French Confession is then quoted, only to be 
condemned in still more explicit terms. Still the presence of Christ 
in the eucharist must be admitted. But then it is only as he is pre- 
sent in religious services generally. " In all these ordinances he is 
present; and he is present in the same manner in them all, namely, 
by his Spirit, who renders them effectual means of salvation." — Lec- 
tures on Theology, by the late Rev. John Dick, D. JD., Lect. XCI. XCII. 

" By the body and blood of Christ, figuratively represented in the 
Lord's Supper, we are undoubtedly to understand his whole work of 



MODERN PURITAN THEORV. 



115 



satisfying the justice of God in behalf of his peculiar people, which 
was consummated or completed, when his body was broken and his 
blood shed on the cross of Calvary ; together with the privileges and 
blessings resulting, both in this life and that which is to come, from 
their Saviour's finished work. All these rich and inestimable gifts 
of divine grace, faith receives and applies in the proper celebration of 

this holy rite." " Justly does our Confession of Faith declare, 

when speaking of this sacrament, that 4 the body and blood of Christ 
are as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers, in this 
ordinance, as the elements themselves are to the outward senses.' 
O, my young friends ! what blessed visions of faith are those, in which 
this precious grace creates an ideal presence of the suffering, bleed- 
ing, dying, atoning Saviour. When Gethsemane, and Pilate's hall, 
and the cross, the thorny crown, the nails, the spear, the hill of Cal- 
vary, are in present view ; when the astounding cry of the co-equal 
Son of the Father, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, thrills 
through the ear to the heart; when the joyous voice quickly follows, 
proclaiming, It is finished ! Father, into thy hands, I commend my 
spirit. Yes, it is here that faith sees the sinner's ransom amply paid, 
&c. &c. Well may it be added, that 4 spiritual nourishment and 
growth in grace' must be the result of views and exercises such as 
these." — Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, by Dr. Green, vol. ii. p. 
338—340. 

" John vi. 53 — 56. The plain meaning of the passage is, that by 
his bloody death, his body and his blood offered in sacrifice for sin, 
he would procure pardon and life for man ; and that they who partook 
of that, or had an interest ir? that, should obtain eternal life. He uses 
the figure of eating and drinking, because that was the subject of dis- 
course, because the Jews prided themselves much on the fact that 
their fathers had eaten manna and because, as he had said that he 
was the bread of life, it was natural to carry out the figure, and say 
that that bread must be eaten, in order to be of any avail in supporting 
and saving men." — " Is meat indeed. Is truly food. My doctrine is 
truly that which will give life to the soul." — " Dwelleth in me. Is 
truly and intimately connected with me. To dwell or abide in him 
is to remain in the belief of his doctrine, and in the participation of 
all the benefits of his death." — U I in him. Jesus dwells in believers 
by his spirit and doctrine. When his spirit is given them to sanctify 
them, and his temper, his meekness, humility, love, pervades their 
hearts ; and when his doctrine is received by them and influences 
their life, and when they are supported by the consolations of his 
gospel, it may be said that he abides or dwells in them." — "Matthew 
xxvi. 26. This is my body. This represents my body. This broken 
bread shows the manner in which my body will be broken ; or this 
will serve to call my dying sufferings to your remembrance" — " So 
Paul and Luke say of the bread, 4 this is my body broken for you; 
this do in remembrance of me.' This expresses the whole design of 
the sacramental bread. It is by a striking emblem to call to remem- 
brance in a vivid manner the dying sufferings of our Lord." — Barnes, 
Notes on the Gospels. 



116 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



These are respectable authorities. They are quoted with re- 
spect. They will be acknowledged generally no doubt to be a 
fair representation of the predominant modern view, with regard 
to the Lord's Supper; particularly as it prevails in New England, 
and throughout the Calvinistic Churches of this country in 
general. The extracts are made various and full, as the best 
means of producing a clear and distinct impression of the sense 
that runs through them as a whole. It would be easy of course 
to multiply them almost to any extent. But this is not neces- 
sary. All that the case requires is simply such a picture as may 
be acknowledged to furnish a proper exhibition of the general 
view it is intended to represent. For this, the extracts now 
offered are sufficient. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



117 



SECTION II. 

CONTRAST. 

Now the first point tlint claims attention in the case, is the fact 
of such a difference between the view here exhibited and the Re- 
formed doctrine of the sixteenth century, as has been already 
affirmed. So far as this goes, it is not necessary to decide abso- 
lutely on the nature of the difference. We may call it a change 
for the worse or a change for the better, as it may happen to 
strike our judgment. But the fact of the difference itself all 
must allow. The theology of New England, in the case before 
us, is not the theology of the Reformed Church of the sixteenth 
century. This Puritan theory of the power and virtue of the 
sacraments, is not the theory that was held by Calvin and that 
appears in the symbolical books of the first Calvinistic Churches. 

We need only to make ourselves at home in the first place 
among the opinions of the sixteenth century, as presented for 
instance in Hospinian or Planck, and then pass over suddenly to 
the thinking of our own time, as revealed in such works as have 
now been quoted, in order to feel the full force of the difference. 
It is a transition into another spiritual element entirely. The 
difference is not simply in words and forms of expression. It 
extends to thoughts themselves. A different view prevails, in 
the two cases, of the nature of the sacraments, and of their re- 
lation to the ends for which they have been instituted ; and 
along with this, the fact cannot be disguised, a different view 
also of the nature of the Christian salvation itself, in its relation 
to the person of the glorious Redeemer. Calvin could not pos- 
sibly have approved what appears to have been the sacramental 
doctrine of Edwards. Ursinus must have openly condemned 
the style in which the subject is presented by Ridgely. Dr. 
Dick virtually pronounces himself at variance with all the early 
Reformed symbols. Even Owen himself could hardly have 
endured with patience, the language of Dr. Dwight. The dif- 
ference is real and serious. The doctrine that runs through 
these extracts, is not the doctrine of the Reformed Church as it 
stood in the beginning. 

To make the case more plain, let the following particulars be 
noticed, as characterizing in general the departure of the modern 
Puritan from the old Reformed view. They will show that it is 
a question of something more than mere words. 



118 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



1. In the old Reformed view, the communion of the believer 
with Christ in the Supper is taken to be specific in its nature, 
and different from all that has place in the common exercises of 
worship. The sacrament, not the elements of course separately 
considered, but the ordinance as the union of element and 
word, is held to be such an exhibition of saving grace, as is 
presented to the faith of the Church under no other form. It 
is not simply the word brought to mind in its ordinary force. 
The outward is not merely the occasion by which the inward, 
in the case, is made present to the soul as a separate existence ; 
but inward and outward, by the energy of the Spirit, are made 
to flow together in the way of a common life; and come thus to 
exert a peculiar, and altogether extraordinary power, in this form, 
to the benefit of the believer. "There is a peculiar communion 
with Christ," says Dr. Owen, " which we have in no other ordi- 
nance and this, he adds, has been the faith of the whole Church 
in all ages. " A way of receiving Christ by eating and drink- 
ing; something peculiar, that is not in prayer, that is not in the 
hearing of the word, nor in any other part of divine worship 
whatever; a peculiar participation of Christ, a peculiar acting of 
faith towards Christ;" — In the modern Puritan view, on the con- 
trary, this specific peculiar virtue of the sacraments is not re- 
cognized. Christ is present, we are told by Dr. Dick, in all or- 
dinances; " and he is present in the same manner in them all, 
namely by his Spirit, who renders them effectual means of sal- 
vation." So with Dr. Dwight the entire force of the institution, 
is made to consist in the occasion it affords, for the affections 
and exercises of common religious worship. The idea of a pe- 
culiar sacramental power, belonging to this form of worship as 
such, seems to have no place at all in his system. 

2. In the old Reformed view, the sacramental transaction is a 
mystery; nay, in some sense an actual miracle. The Spirit 
works here in a way that transcends, not only the human under- 
standing, but the ordinary course of the world also in every 
other view. There is a form of action in the sacraments, which 
now belongs indeed to the regular order of the life that is com- 
prehended in the Church, but which as thus established still in- 
volves a character that may be denominated supernatural, as com- 
pared with the ordinary constitution, not only of nature, but 
even of the Christian life itself. " Not without reason," says 
Calvin, " is the communication, which makes us flesh of Christ's 
flesh and bone of his bones denominated by Paul a great ?nys- 
tery. In the sacred Supper, therefore, we acknowledge it a 
miracle, transcending both nature and our own understanding, 
that Christ's life is made common to us with himself and his 
flesh given to us as aliment." " This mystery of our coalition 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



119 



with Christ," says the Gallic Confession, " is so sublime, that it 
transcends all our senses and also the whole course of nature." 
" The mode is such," according to the Belgic Confession, " as 
to surpass the apprehension of our mind, and cannot be under- 
stood by any." " The mysteriousness," we are told by Dr. Owen, 
" is beyond expression ; the mysterious reception of Christ in 
this peculiar way of exhibition." 

Contrast with this now the style in which the ordinance is re- 
presented, from the proper Puritan stand-point, in the extracts 
already quoted. We find it spoken of, it is true, with great re- 
spect, as full of interest, significance and power. But it is no 
mystery; much less a miracle. As little so, it would seem, in 
the view of Dr. Dwight, as a common fourth of July celebration. 
The ends contemplated in the one case are religious, in the 
other patriotic ; but the institutions as related to these ends are in 
all material respects of one and the same order. The ends pro- 
posed in the Supper " the enlargement and rectification of our 
views — the purification of our affections — the amendment of our 
lives. The means are efficacious and desirable; at the same 
time simple; intelligible to the humblest capacity ; in no respect 
burdensome; lying within the reach of all men; incapable of 
being misconstrued without violence ; and therefore not easily 
susceptible of mystical or superstitious perversion. In their own 
proper, undiguised nature, they appeal powerfully to the senses, 
the imagination, and the heart ; and at the same time enlighten 
in the happiest manner, the understanding" All this is said to 
show " the wisdom of this institution." " There seems to have 
been a disposition in that age," says Dr. Dick, with reference to 
the sixteenth century, " to believe that there was a presence of 
Christ in the eucharist different from his presence in the other 
ordinances of the gospel; an undefined something, which cor- 
responded to the strong language used at the institution of the 
Supper: This is my body, — this is my blood. Acknowledging 
it to be figurative, many still thought that a mystery was couched 
under it." Dr. Dick himself of course finds no mystery in the 
case. Calvin's doctrine accordingly is rejected, as incomprehen- 
sible; not understood by himself, (as the great theologian indeed 
humbly admits,) and beyond the understanding also of his readers. 
" Plain, literal language is best, especially on spiritual subjects, 
and should have been employed by Protestant Churches with the 
utmost care, as the figurative terms of Scripture have been so 
grossly mistaken." To this we may add, that the very reason 
why such plain, simple language as might have suited Dr. Dick 
has not been employed by the Protestant Churches in their sym- 
bolical books, is to be found in the fact that these Protestant 
Churches believed and intended to assert the presence of a mys- 



120 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



tery in the sacrament, for the idea of which no place is allowed 
in his creed, and that could not be properly represented there- 
fore by any language which this creed might supply. 

3. The old Reformed doctrine includes always the idea of 
an objective force in the sacraments. The sacramental union 
between the sign and the thing signified is real, and holds in 
virtue of the constitution of the ordinance itself, not in the faith 
simply or inward frame of the communicant. Without faith 
indeed this force which belongs to the sacrament cannot avail 
to the benefit of the communicant; faith forms the indispensa- 
ble condition, by whose presence only the potential in this case 
can become actual, the life that is present be brought to take 
effect in the interior man. But the condition here, as in all 
other cases, is something different from the thing itself, for 
which it makes room.* The grace of the sacrament comes 
from God ; but it comes as such under the sacrament as its true 
and proper form ; not inhering in the elements indeed, out- 
wardly considered ; but still mysteriously lodged, by the power 
of the Holy Ghost, in the sacramental transaction as a whole. 
The grace is truly present, according to Calvin, even where it 
is excluded from the soul by unbelief; as much so as the fer- 
tilizing qualities of the rain, that falls fruitless on the barren 
rock. Unbelief may make it of no effect; but the intrinsic 
virtue of the sacrament itself still remains the same. The 
bread and wine are the sure pledge still of the presence of what 
they represent, and " a true exhibition of it on the part of God. ,, 
" The symbols," say Beza and Farel, " are by no means naked ; 

* It is strange how much difficulty some persons seem to find in making 
this plain distinction. Because faith is necessary to the right use of the Lord's 
Supper, they will have it forthwith that all the force of it must resolve itself 
into the exercise of this grace on the part of the worshipper; and when they 
hear of an objective virtue in the sacrament itself, the presence of a real spi- 
ritual energy belonging to it in its own nature, whether apprehended by the 
communicant or not, and altogether independent of his faith, they are ready 
to exclaim against it at once as the very opus operatum of Popery itself. But 
the difference between condition and -principle, is one that meets us on all 
sides, in every sphere of life. The plant cannot vegetate and grow without 
the presence of certain conditions, earth, moisture, heat, light, &c, required 
for its development. Are these conditions then, in any sense, the principle 
or ground of its life as such ? Shall we say of the seed that it has no life in 
itself till it is thus called out in an actual way ? On the contrary, we affirm 
the life to be in the seed objectively, even though it should never have an 
opportunity to make its appearance. And so we say, the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper — not the elements, of course, as such, but the transaction, the 
sacramental mystery as a whole — includes, or makes present objectively, the 
true life of Christ, which, when it meets with the proper conditions in the 
believer's soul, will there reveal itself in the same character, as something 
quite different from the mere working of the conditions themselves by which 
this is accomplished. To the unbeliever the same life is exhibited under the 
same form, but he does not accept it in his soul. He eats and drinks judg- 
ment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



121 



but so far as God is concerned, who makes the promise and 
offer, they always have the thing itself truly and certainly joined 
with them, whether proposed to believers or unbelievers." — 
" We do utterly condemn the the vanity of those who affirm, 
that the sacraments are nothing else but mere naked signs." 
Old Scotch Confession. — " Those signs then are by no means 
vain or void." Belgic Confession. — " We teach that the things 
signified are together with the signs in the right use exhibited 
and communicated." Ursinvs. The sacrament in this view, 
not only signifies, but seals to believers, the grace it carries in 
its constitution. It is not simply a pledge that the blessings it 
represents are sure to them, in a general way, apart from this par- 
ticular engagement itself; as when a man by some outward 
stipulation binds himself to fulfil the terms of a contract in an- 
other place and at another time. The sacramental transaction 
certifies and makes good the grace it represents, as actually 
communicated at the time. So it is said to exhibit also the 
thing signified. The thing is there ; not the name of the thing 
only, and not its sign or shadow; but the actual substance itself 
" The sacrament is no picture," says Calvin, " but the true, 
veritable pledge of our union with Christ." To say that the 
body of Christ is adumbrated by the symbol of bread, only as 
a dead statue is made to represent Hercules or Mercury, he pro- 
nounces profane. The signs, Owen tells us, " exhibit that which 
they do not contain. It is no empty, painted feast. Here is 
something really exhibited by Jesus Christ unto us, to receive, 
besides the outward pledges of bread and wine." 

How different from all this again, the light in which the sub- 
ject is presented in our modern Puritan theology. Here too 
the sacraments are indeed said to seal, and also to exhibit, the 
grace they represent. But plainly the old, proper sense of these 
terms, in the case, is changed. The seal ratifies simply a cove- 
nant, in virtue of which certain blessings are made sure to the 
believer, on certain conditions, under a wholly different form. 
Two parties in the transaction, Christ and his people, stipulate 
to be faithful to each other in fulfilling the engagements of a 
mutual contract ; and in doing so, they both affix their seal to 
the sacramental bond. Such is the view presented very dis- 
tinctly by Edwards, Hopkins, and Bellamy. The contract of 
salvation according to this last, is in the Lord's Supper, " ex- 
ternally and visibly sealed, ratified, and confirmed, on both sides, 
with as much formality as any written instrument is mutually 
sealed by the parties, in any covenant among men. And now 
if both parties are sincere in the covenant thus sealed, and if 
both abide by and act according to it, the communicant will 
be saved." So the sacrament is allowed to be exhibitional ; not 

11 



122 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



however of any actual present substance, as the old doctrine 
always held ; but only in the way of figure, shadow or sign. A 
picture or statue may be said to exhibit their original, to the 
same extent. The sacramental elements are Christ's proxy. 
" Or the matter may be more fitly represented by this similitude : 
it is as if a prince should send an ambassador to a woman in a 
foreign land, proposing marriage, and by his ambassador should 
send her his picture, &c." Edwards. — With Dr. Dwight the 
sacrament is reduced fully to the character of a mere occasion, 
by which religious affections are excited and supported in the 
breast of the worshipper. He seems to have no idea at all of 
an objective force, belonging to the institution in its own nature. 
All is subjective, and subjective only. All turns on the adapta- 
tion of the rite to instruct and affect. He measures its wisdom 
and power, wholly by this standard. It is admirably contrived, 
to work upon " the senses, the imagination, and the heart," as 
well as to " enlighten the understanding." Its whole force, 
when all is done, is the amount simply of the good thoughts, 
good feelings, and good purposes, that are brought to it, and 
made to go along with it, on the part of the worshippers them- 
selves. 

4. According to the old Reformed doctrine the invisible grace 
of the sacrament, includes a real participation in his person. 
That which is made present to the believer, is the very life of 
Christ himself in its true power and substance. The doctrine 
proceeds on the assumption, that the Christian salvation stands 
in an actual union between Christ and his people, mystical but 
in the highest sense real, in virtue of which they are as closely 
joined to him, as the limbs are to the head in the natural body. 
They are in Him, and He is in them, not figuratively but truly; 
in the way of a growing process that will become complete 
finally in the resurrection. The power of this fact is myste- 
riously concentrated in the Holy Supper. Here Christ commu- 
nicates himself to his Church ; not simply a right to the grace 
that resides in his person, or an interest by outward grant in the 
benefits of his life and death ; but his person itself, as the 
ground and fountain, from which all these other blessings 
may be expected to flow. This idea is exhibited under all forms 
in which it could well be presented, and in terms the most clear 
and explicit. Christ first, and then his benefits. Calvin will 
hear of no other order but this. The same view runs through 
all the Calvinistic symbols. Not a title to Christ in his benefits, 
the efficacy of his atonement, the work of his spirit ; but a true 
property in his life itself, out of which only that other title can 
legitimately spring. " We are quickened by a real participation 
of him, which he designates by the terms eating and drinking 



MODERN 11RITAN THEOUV. 



123 



that no person might suppose the life which we receive from 
him to consist in simple knowledge." Calvin. We communi- 
cate with Christ's substance. " A suhstantial communication is 
affirmed by me everywhere." Id — "He nourishes and vivifies 
us byUhe substance of his body and blood." Gallic Confession. — 
" It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the pardon of 
sin and life eternal ; but also besides that to become more and 
more united to his sacred body, by the Holy Ghost, &c." 
Heidelberg Catechism. — " We teach that he is present and 
united with us by the Holy Ghost, albeit his body be far absent 
from us." Ur sinus. — " In the Supper we are made partakers, 
not only of the Spirit of Christ, and his satisfaction, justice, 
virtue, and operation ; but also of the very substance and 
essence of his true body and blood, &c" Id. — " Christ cruci- 
fied, and all benefits of his death." Westminster Confession. — 
" It is on all sides plainly confessed, that this sacrament is a 
true and a real participation of Christ, who thereby imparteth 
himself, even his whole entire person, as a mystical head, unto 
every soul that receiveth him, and that every such receiver doth 
incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member 
of him." Hooker. — A peculiar exhibition of Christ under out- 
ward signs, H and a mysterious reception of him in them really, 
so as to come to a real substantial incorporation in our souls." 
Owen. 

As the modern Puritan theory eviscerates the institution of 
all objective force, under any view, it must of course still more 
decidedly refuse to admit the idea of any such virtue belonging 
to it as that now mentioned. The union of the believer with 
Christ it makes to be moral only; or at least a figurative in- 
corporation with his Spirit!* The sacred Supper forms an 
occasion, by which the graces of the pious communicant are 
called into favourable exercise ; and his faith in particular is 
assisted in apprehending and appropriating the precious con- 
tents of the Christian salvation, as wrought out by the Re- 
deemer's life and death! He participates in this way in the 
fruits of Christ's love, the benefits of his mediatorial work, his 
imputed righteousness, his heavenly intercession, the influences 
of his Spirit, &c. ; but in the substantial life of Christ himself 
he has no part whatever. " A mutual solemn profession of the 

* The insufficient and contradictory character of the representations, by 
which it is attempted in part to uphold the idea of a real union with Christ, on 
the basis of this theology, will be noticed in another place. To a great extent, 
the idea seems not to be acknowledged at all. The whole is made to be a 
sott of biblical figure, which only the most mystical imagination might be ex- 
pected to understand in any literal sense. 



J 24 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



two parties transacting the covenant of grace, and visibly united 
in that covenant." Edwards. — So also Hopkins and Bellamy, 
" Sensible impressions are much more powerful than those 
which are made on the understanding, &c." Dwight. — " The 
ends proposed in the institution of the Lord's Supper are, the 
enlargement and rectification of our views concerning the noblest 
of all subjects, the purification of our affections and the amend- 
ment of our lives." Id. — " Stript of all metaphorical terms, 
the action must mean that in the believing and grateful com- 
memoration of his death, we enjoy the blessings which were 
purchased by it, in the same manner in which we enjoy them 
when we exercise faith in hearing the Gospel." Dick. — " No 
man who admits that the bread and wine are only signs and 
figures, can consistently suppose the w 7 ords, 1 Cor. x. 16, to have 
any other meaning, than that we have communion with Christ in 
the fruits of his sufferings and death ; or that receiving the sym- 
bols we receive by faith the benefits procured by the pains of his 
body and the effusion of his blood." Id. — Christ's "doctrine 
is truly that which will give life to the soul." Barnes.—" To 
dwell or abide in him, is to remain in the belief of his doctrine 
and in the participation of all the benefits of his death." Id. — 
" The whole design of the sacramental bread, is by a striking 
emblem to call to remembrance, in a vivid manner, the dying suf- 
ferings of onr Lord." Id. 

5. In the old Reformed view of the Lord's Supper, the com- 
munion of the believer in the trjugj^erson of Christ, in the form 
now stated, is supposed to hold with him especially as the Word 
made flesh. His humanity forms the medium of his union with 
the Church. The life of which he is the fountain, flows forth 
from him only as he is the Son of Man. To have part in it at 
all, we must have part in it as a real human life; we must eat 
his flesh and drink his blood ; take into us the substance of what 
he was as man ; so as to become flesh of his flesh and bone of 
his bones. " The very flesh in which he dwells is made to be 
vivific for us, that we may be nourished by it to immortality." 
Calvin. — "This sacred communication of his flesh and blood, 
in which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if he penetrated 
our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals also in the Holy 
Supper." Id. — " I do not teach that Christ dwells in us simply 
by his Spirit, but that he so raises us to himself as to transfuse 
into us the vivific vigor of his flesh." Id* — " The very substance 

* Vitam spiritualem quam nobis Christus Jargitur, non in eo, duntaxat sitam 
esse confitemur, quod spiritu suo vivificat, sed quod spiritus etiam sui virtute 
carnis suae vivificae nos facit participes, qua participatione in vitam aeternam 
pascamur. Itaque cum de communione quam cum Christo fideles habent 
loquimur, non minus carni et sanguini ejus communicare ipsos intelligimus 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



125 



itself of the Son of Man." Beza and Far el — " That same sub- 
stance which he took in the womb of the Virgin, and which he 
carried up into heaven." Beza and Peter Martyr. — "As the 
eternal deity has imparted life and immortality to the flesh of 
Jesus Christ, so likewise his flesh and blood, when eaten and 
drunk by us, confer upon us the same prerogatives." Old Scotch 
Confession. — " That which is eaten is the very, natural body of 
Christ, and what is drunk his true blood." Belgic Confession. — 
" Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone .... We are as really 
partakers of his true body and blood, as we receive these holy 
signs." Heidelberg Catechism. — " We are in such sort coupled, 
knit, and incorporated into his true, essential human body, by 
his Spirit dwelling both in him and us, that we are flesh of his 
flesh and bone of his bones." Ursinus. — " They that worthily 
communicate in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, do therein 
feed upon the body and blood of Christ — truly and really." 
Westminster Catechism. 

All this the modern Puritan view utterly repudiates, as semi- 
popish mysticism. It will allow no real participation of Christ's 
person in the Lord's Supper, under any form : but least of all 
under the form of his humanity. Such communion as it is will- 
ing to admit, it limits to the presence of Christ in his divine na- 
ture, or to the energy he puts forth by his Spirit. As for all 
that is said about his body and blood, it is taken to be mere 
figure, intended to express the value of his sufferings and death. 
With his body in the strict sense, his life as incarnate, formerly 
on earth and now in heaven, we can have no communion at all, 
except in the way of remembering what was endured in it for 
our salvation. The fash in any other view profiteth nothing; 
it is only the Spirit that quickeneth. The language of the Cal- 
vinistic confessions on this subject, is resolved into bold, violent 
metaphor, that comes in the end to mean almost nothing. " If 
he (Calvin) meant that there is some mysterious communication 
with his human nature, we must be permitted to say the notion 
was as incomprehensible to himself as it is to his readers." 
Dick. — " There is an absurdity in the notion that there is any 
communion with the body and blood of Christ, considered in 
themselves." Id. — " Justly does our Confession of Faith declare, 
that the body and blood of Christ are as really, but spiritually 

present to the faith of believers, &c What blessed visions 

of faith are those, in which this precious grace creates an ideal 

quam spiritui, ut ita totum Christum possideant. — Hanc autem carnis et san- 
guinis sui communionem Christus sub panis et vini symbolis in sacro sancta 
sua caena offert et exhibet omnibus, qui earn rite celebrant juxta legitimum 
ejus institutum. Confcssio Fidei de Eucharistia, exhibited by Farel, Calvin and 
Viret, a. 1537. 

11* 



126 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



presence of the suffering, bleeding, dying, atoning Saviour! 
Then Gethsemane, and Pilate's hall, and the cross, the thorny 
crown, the nails, the spear, the hill of Calvary, are in present 
view!" Green. — "This broken bread shows the manner in 
which my body will be broken ; or this will serve to call my 
dying sufferings to your remembrance" Barnes. 

Let this suffice in the way of comparison. The two theories, 
it is clear, are different throughout. Nor is the difference such 
as may be considered of small account. It is not simply formal 
or accidental. The modern Puritan view evidently involves a 
material falling away, not merely from the form of the old Cal- 
vinistic doctrine, but from its inward life and force. It makes 
a great difference surely, whether the union of the believer with 
Christ be regarded as the power of one and the same life, or as 
holding only in a correspondence of thought and feeling; 
whether the Lord's Supper be a sign and seal only of God's 
grace in general, or the pledge also of a special invisible grace 
present in the transaction itself ; and whether we are united by 
means of it to the person of Christ, or only to his merits; and 
whether finally we communicate in the ordinance with the whole 
Christ, in a real way, or only with his divinity. Such, however, 
is the difference that stares us in the face, from the comparison 
now made. All must see and feel that it exists, and that it is 
serious. 

Under this view then simply the subject is entitled to earnest 
attention. Apart from all judgment upon the character of the 
change which has taken place, the fact itself is one that may 
well challenge consideration. We have no right to overlook it, 
or to treat it as though it did not exist. We have no right to 
hold it unimportant, or to take it for granted with unreflecting 
presumption that the truth is all on the modern side. The mere 
fact is serious. For the doctrine of the eucharist lies at the very 
heart of Christianity itself; and the chasm that divides the two 
systems here is wide and deep. For churches that claim to re- 
present, by true and legitimate succession, the life of the Refor- 
mation under its best form, the subject is worthy of being laid 
_ to heart. Only ignorance or frivolity can allow themselves to 
make light of it. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



127 



SECTION III. 

FAITH OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 

A strong presumption is furnished against the modern Puri- 
tan doctrine, as compared with the Calvinistic or Reformed, in 
the fact that the first may be said to be of yesterday only in the 
history of the Church, while the last, so far as the difference in 
question is concerned, has been the faith of nearly the whole 
Christian world from the beginning. It included indeed a pro- 
test against the errors with which the truth had been overlaid in 
the church of Rome. It rejected transubstantiation and the sacri- 
fice of the mass; and refused to go with Luther in his dogma 
of a local presence. But. in all this it formed no rupture with 
the original doctrine of the Church. That which had consti- 
tuted the central idea of this doctrine from the first, and which 
appears even under the perversions that have just been named, 
it still continued to hold with a firm grasp. It is this central 
idea, the true and proper substance of the ancient church faith 
precisely, that created the difference between the Reformed doc- 
trine and the modern Puritan. In the Reformed system it is 
present in all its force; in the other it is wanting. The voice 
of antiquity is all on the side of the Sixteenth Century, in its 
high view of the sacrament. To the low view which has since 
come to prevail, it lends no support whatever. 

It is granted readily, that the view taken of the Lord's Sup- 
per in the early Church, as represented to us in the writings of 
the fathers, is by no means free from obscurity and contradic- 
tion. It is not from the infancy of the Church in any case, that 
we are to look for clear and satisfactory statements of theological 
truth. The fathers form no binding authority for the faith of 
later times in this view; although it does not follow immedi- 
ately from such a concession, that we are at liberty to despise or 
overlook their authority entirely ; just as little as it could be 
counted rational for a man in advanced life, to affect an utter 
independence of his own childhood, because it is found to have 
been characterized by all manner of imperfections and mistakes. 
Doctrines, in the Church, have their separate history. The life 
and power of the truth they express has been present from the 
beginning; but centuries have been needed to give them their 
proper form for the understanding. It constitutes then no ob- 
jection whatever to an established article of the Christian creed, 



123 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the doctrine of the true and proper divinity of Christ for instance, 
or the doctrine of total depravity and free grace, that testimonies 
may be gathered from the earlier fathers, which seem to conflict 
with it, or at least to show it of uncertain authority. All such 
confusion and contradiction serve only to show, that the article 
in question had not at the time evolved itself for the conscious- 
ness of the Church into the clear theological form, in which it 
was subsequently held. The confusion impairs not on the one 
hand the credit of the doctrine, and brings no fair reproach upon 
the witnessing authorities in the case on the other. It is enough 
that we find them true to the inward soul and substance of the 
Christian faith; though they may fall short of its full and proper 
expression; while it must be regarded always as a fair test of 
the correctness of any later statement, claiming to be the expres- 
sion required, that it shall be found to take up and preserve the 
substance at least of the same life that is presented in the earlier 
creed. Thus in the case before us, the weight and significance 
of the Lord's Supper are not to be measured precisely, by the 
terms in which we find it spoken of in the early Church. We 
need not be surprised either to meet with some confusion and 
contradiction, in the testimony furnished by the fathers on the 
subject of the ordinance, its nature and design. The doctrine 
of the eucharist, like every other Christian doctrine, has a his- 
tory. Its history moreover has proceeded through error ; and 
it must be allowed, that the principle of this error began to work 
at a very early period. All this is to be taken into consideration, 
when we carry our appeal in the present case to the first ages of 
the Church. But all this can never form a sufficient reason, for 
treating the authority of these ages with indifference or contempt. 
Allowing their testimony to be imperfect, confused, and not 
always consistent with itself; admitting too that as we advance 
into the fourth and fifth centuries, we are met with forms of 
thinking and speaking that look directly towards the great error 
of transubstantiation ; we have still no right to assume that the 
Church in the beginning had no faith that could be counted real 
and substantial, in the case of the eucharist, or that this faith 
included in no sense the truth as it has been of force for the 
Church since. In the midst of all errors and contradictions, the 
early Church must have been in possession of the truth, here as at 
other points, at least in its essential power and life. Running 
through all, there must be a certain fundamental substratum, in 
which the true idea of the sacrament was always at hand, and 
which the Church is bound accordingly, through all ages, to 
respect in this light. 

Now it is very certain that the early fathers do not teach 
either transubstantiation or consubstantiation. There is not a 



MODERN PURITAN TI1E0RV. 



129 



passage which can be quoted from the first three centuries, that 
yields the least support, on any fair interpretation, to either of 
these dogmas; while the general testimony of the period contra- 
dicts both in explicit terms. We may say too, that in the period 
following, on to the time of Paschasius Radbert, in the ninth 
century, the case continues the same; although undoubtedly a 
style of speaking was now introduced, that seems often to coun- 
tenance in full, if not pointedly to affirm, the superstition that 
was afterwards openly proclaimed as the creed of the Church. 
The sacramental doctrine of the early Church recognized no 
local presence of Christ's body in the elements, no merely oral 
communication, nothing like a magical virtue in the use of the 
ordinance outwardly considered. But just as little, on the 
other hand, did it fall over to the opposite extreme of making 
the ordinance a mere representation of spiritual blessings to the 
mind of the worshipper. From the beginning evidently it was 
felt to be more than this. It was regarded as a mystery, in 
which was involved the inmost life of the gospel, and a form of 
communion with the Saviour altogether peculiar and extraordi- 
nary. We find it accordingly exalted and honoured as the cen- 
tral service in the Christian worship, around which all other 
services were made to revolve, and from which they might be 
said to borrow all their light. The elements were more than 
memorials simply and signs. They were made to bear the 
designation of the Lord's body and blood, in the way of com- 
mon liturgical expression ; which could not have been the case, 
if they had not been regarded as the actual exhibition of his 
person, in a mystery, under this form. The same thing is clear 
fiom utterances of a more direct nature, with regard to the pecu- 
liar power of the institution ; all serving to show in the breast of 
the Church, from the first, the feeling that the eucharist includes 
in its very constitution a real communion with the whole person 
of Christ, as the ground of all interest on the part of the believer 
in his benefits. This idea, in the course of time, carried the 
faith of Christendom quite over to the absurdity of transubstan- 
tiation ; which itself, however, only serves to illustrate the force 
with which it wrought as an essential, constituent part of the 
Christian consciousness from the beginning. If Christianity had 
not included in its very nature the idea of a true substantial 
union with the human life of Christ, not only signified but em- 
bodied and made actual in the mystery of the Supper, such a 
superstition as that maintained by the Church of Rome could 
never have come to prevail. The simple fact that the early 
sacramental doctrine teas carried regularly forward, by perver- 
sion, to this extraordinary and monstrous result, is itself evidence 
satisfactory that the doctrine always contained the idea, out of 



130 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



which only it was possible for any such abuse to spring. Had 
the low view of the sacraments with which many are satisfied at 
the present time prevailed in the faith of the primitive Church, 
such an error as that which supposes an actual change of the 
elements into the body and blood of Christ could never have 
appeared. 

The early fathers speak of the eucharist frequently as an 
offering or oblation ; never, however, in the sense in which it 
came to be so regarded in the later Catholic Church. It was 
viewed in this case merely as an act of Christian worship, in 
which the congregation- joyfully recognized the goodness of God 
as displayed in the natural creation, and rendered praise to him 
especially for the grace of redemption bestowed upon the world 
through his Son Jesus Christ. In this last direction, it was 
regarded, of course, also as a memorial of the Saviour, by which 
the lively recollection of his person, and particularly of his suffer- 
ings and death, was to be perpetuated in the Church to the end 
of time. But this all formed only one side of the Christian con- 
sciousness in the case. Even as an act of thanksgiving and 
commemoration, the service included a special reference to the 
death of Christ as a 'propitiation for sin ; something therefore to 
be reached and appropriated by the spirit of the worshipper, as 
the indispensable condition of his own life. It was felt to be 
more then than a mere occasion for the exercise of common 
recollection or imagination : it demanded faith on the part of 
the worshipper, and was felt at the same time to embody an ob- 
jective exhibition of the great Christian sacrifice in the way of 
actual pledge and seal, for the benefit of the soul in which such 
faith was at hand. This relation, however, was found to involve, 
to the apprehension of the Church, a connection with the Sa- 
viour still more intimate and close. To have part truly and 
fully in the virtue of his atonement, it was felt that there must 
be a real participation also in the life of his person. This 
formed accordingly the other side of the Christian conscious- 
ness, in the period to which we refer ; and both conceptions 
must be joined together, in order that we may understand and 
interpret it fairly, in relation to the point with which we are 
now concerned. 

It will be found now, on proper investigation, that the view of 
the eucharist held in the early Church includes throughout, 
along with that reference to the virtue of Christ's atonement 
which has been mentioned, this idea also of a real communica- 
tion with his person, as the only ground on which the other bene- 
fit can become available. The idea in some cases may be in a 
measure thrown into the shade; but it never passes wholly out 
of sight; while for the most part it stands forth with such pro- 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



131 



minence, as to leave no room whatever to question its pre- 
sence.* 

Ignatius speaks of the eucharist (ep. ad Smyrn. c. 7.) as the 
flesh of Christ, that suffered for our sins and was raised again 
by the goodness of the Father. This does not imply that he 
supposed the body of Christ to be in the bread. We know he 
did not. But the language here employed, which must be con- 
sidered true to the general view of the Church at the time, serves 
to show with what force the feeling prevailed that the things 
represented by the signs in the Lord's Supper were so bound to 
them inwardly, as to form in some sense one and the same pre- 
sence. So when he styles the bread (cp. ad Ephes. c. 20,) "the 
medicine of immortality, the antidote of death," it does not 
indeed imply that he considered the reception of Christ's body 
into the believer's person the means physically of his resurrec- 
tion ; but it certainly does show this much at least, that some- 
thing more was felt to be involved in the sacramental service, 
than a mere thinking of Christ and his mediatorial work. The 
sacrament is viewed as carrying in itself objectively the power 
to unite us with the atonement of Christ, by making us one with 
him in his life. It is the antidote of death, as it causes us to 
" live always in Jesus Christ." 

Justin Martyr ( Apol. I. c. ($($,) tells us that the eucharist was 
not received by Christians as common bread or common drink; 
but that as Jesus Christ himself became flesh for our salvation, 

* For an able and full exposition of this point, the reader is referred to a 
recent work, Das Dogma vom heiligen Abendmahl und seine Geschichte, von 
Dr. August Ebrard. Frankfurt a M. 1845. Dr Ebrard is Professor of The- 
ology, at Zurich, in the service, of course, of the Reformed Church. His 
work is intended to be a vindication of the Reformed or Calvmistic theory of 
the Eucharist, in its substance, as distinguished from what is styled the Old 
Lutheran view; and it carries throughout, on this account, a somewhat 
polemical reference in this direction. The ultimate design of it, however, is 
irenical ; as the author supposes that the case is one which admits of recon- 
ciliation, and that all that is needed for this purpose is such a statement of 
the doctrine as may relieve it from what may be regarded as merely accidental 
objections on both sides. He, of course, maintains a real communion with 
Christ's whole life, in the new nature of the Christian generally, and in the 
transaction of the sacrament in particular. This is something certainly that 
deserves to be noted, as proceeding from the very heart of the original Swiss 
Reformation, and the theological chair, we may say, of Zuingli himself. It 
serves to show how powerfully the tide of evangelical thinking has come, 
to set in, at this time, in the direction here taken. I need not say, that it has 
been particularly encouraging to me, to meet with this publication in the 
course of the present work ; maintaining as it does, substantially, the same 
view of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, though constructed on a wholly 
different plan, and in view also of altogether different relations. I regret, 
however, that the second volume, which was to have appeared some months 
ago, exhibiting the history of the doctrine since the Reformation, has not yet 
come into my hands. 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



so it was held that the consecrated food in this solemnity is his 
flesh and blood. His meaning is, that in partaking of the one, 
we partake of the other also in a mystery, to the sustentation of 
that new life which is communicated to us by Christ. 

Irenseus seems to go farther still, and to teach that the bread 
and wine in the eucharist are so pervaded with the very body 
and blood of Christ, as to become by physical incorporation the 
source of immortality to the body of the believer. By a proper 
comparison, however, of one passage with another, it appears 
that this could not have been his meaning. But it is thus made 
only so much the more certain, that he considered the participa- 
tion of the sacramental bread and wine to be a participation, at 
the same time, of the person of Christ, in virtue of which the 
body itself, in the case of the true Christian, is made to have 
part in his nature, and so in that eternal life of which he is the 
fountain. " As the bread out of the earth," he tells us, (Adv. 
ha3r. IV. 18, 5,) e< after its consecration, is no longer common 
bread, but the eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and 
a heavenly ; so also our bodies, when they partake of the eucha- 
rist, are no longer mortal, having the hope of the resurrection to 
life everlasting." Again (Adv. haer. V. 2, 3): "As the slip of 
the vine inserted in the ground has in its own time brought forth 
fruit, and the grain of wheat falling into earth and undergoing 
dissolution has been raised up with multiplication by the Spirit 
of God, through whom all things consist; and these, made meet 
afterwards, in God's wisdom, for man's use, and having added to 
them the word of divine consecration, become the eucharist, 
which is Christ's body and blood; so in like manner our bodies 
are nourished by this, and after they are buried and dissolved in 
the earth, shall in their own time rise again, the divine word 
imparting to them the resurrection." Here he seems to identify 
the elements absolutely with Christ's body and blood, and has 
been supposed by some to teach that the mere oral or corporeal 
reception of them served to convey into the bodies of believers, 
in a physical way, the virtue of immortality. But other passages 
show that such was not his meaning; and, even in these quota- 
tions, it is clear that all is referred to the word of God, the pre- 
sence of a higher life, that is felt to be mystically joined with the 
sacramental symbols. Hence he styles the bread and wine else- 
where the antitypes of Christ's body and blood, in the participation 
of which we are made to receive the remission of sins and life 
everlasting. This term (avtC'tvrta) was frequently applied to the 
elements in the early Church. 

The view represented by Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, 
was that which prevailed most generally, according to Neander, 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



133 



in their time.* In the north of Africa, as represented by Tertul- 
lian and Cyprian, we find a more guarded phraseology in rela- 
tion to the whole subject. The bread and wine are more 
distinctly exhibited in the character of symbols, and no room is 
given for the imagination to confound them with the actual body 
and blood of Christ. Still they are not dead symbols. Along with 
their sacramental use, a real communication with the body and 
blood they represent is also supposed to have place ; the visible 
and the invisible comprehended in the same transaction. The 
practice of the Church may itself be taken as an evidence, that a 
high sense was entertained of the objective virtue of the sacra- 
ment ; for it was in Northern Africa particularly, that daily 
communion prevailed, and for a time also the custom of extend- 
ing the ordinance even to infants. Tertullian, indeed, tells us 
that the words " Aiy body/ 5 in the form of institution mean, 
"The figure of my body;" and this is sufficient to show, that he 
had no thought of any thing like an actual inclusion of Christ's 
body in the bread.f But lie tells us elsewhere again, that we 

* Allg. Gesch. der Chr. Religion und Kir die. 2d edit. Hamburg, 1S43. 
Vol. ii., p. 1117-1120. Neander tells us that the view represented by these 
fathers involved the supposition of an actual corporeity assumed by the Logos 
immediately in the sacrament itself, in conjunction with the elements, and in 
such way as to be carried over with them into the bodies of believers as a 
tyd^uaxov a^avaoiac or pabulum of immortality; an idea which he admits, 
however, was not distinctly uttered till a later time. It lies, he thinks, par- 
ticularly in the passage of Justin, to which leference has already been made, 
(Apol. i. 66,) where we have the words : TV71/ 6V Xoyov tov rca^' avrov 

£V£a£40tj^;t0ai' T^o^f, f£ r$ at^ua xai odgxs$ xand ^tafjo r kr i v r^iyovrai 
ru<Zv, ixsivov tou oa^xuTtorf^skvtos ^Ir^ov xai oagxd xai a^ua £6iba%$rLi?v 
tivai. It must be confessed, however, that this is very obscure evidence of 
any such opinion. Ebrard, in the work already quoted, shows very clearly 
that these early fathers, in the use of such language, did not intend to assert, 
what their language at times might seem to imply, an actual corporealization 
of Christ in any way in the elements, but simply the presence of his body 
mystically in the sacramental transaction. The elements were constituted, by 
consecration, the "body and blood" of Christ, and were so styled in the 
general liturgical phraseology; they received a new character under the 
eucharistic benediction, and became the present pledge of what they repre- 
sented ; but still, they remained, in their own substance, bread and wine. All 
goes to show, however, how deep was the feeling, that the ordinance com- 
prehendejd in it a real communion with the life of Christ ; and with this life, 
it may be added, under its human form. For even the conception mentioned 
by Neander, would resolve itself at last simply into this, that Christ's humanity 
must extend itself, not by any division of his individual person but in the way 
of organic reproduction, into the persons of all whom he will thus raise up at 
the last day. His life, in this form, is the true tydguaxov d^aw^aj, as he 
says expressly himself (John vi. 54). 

t Rudelbach, in his work, "Reformation, Lutherthum und Union," Leipzig, 
1339, devotes a special excursus to Tertullian's doctrine of the Lord's Supper ; 
in which he labours with all his might to make him out a sound Lutheran, of 
the old stamp. He will have it that the term figure, in the passage here re- 
ferred to (Adv. Marc. iv. 40), denotes the actual form of the body itself, in the 

12 



134 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



partake in the Supper of H the fatness of the Lord's body ;" (De 
pudic, cap. 9 ;) and that the flesh is fed with the sacramental 
body and blood of Christ, in order that the soul also may be 
fat from God." (De resur. earn. cap. 8.) While in another con- 
nection he makes this spiritual nourishment to be the very life 
of Christ himself, when he teaches, (De orat. c. 6,) that the 
petition for daily bread must be taken mainly in a spiritual 
sense; as Christ is the proper bread of life according to his own 
word, and as signified in the bread of the eucharist; so that, in 
praying, Give us our daily bread, " perpetuitatem postulamus in 
Christo, et individuitatem a corpore ejus." 

The Alexandrian fathers, Clement, and more particularly 
Origen, separate of course still more widely between the inward 
and the outward, in the case of the sacraments, as in every other 
case. Their tendency was always to an extreme spiritualism ; 
which, with Origen especially, came near to making the whole 
Christian revelation little better than a splendid philosophical 
allegory. He disparages the letter continually, for the purpose 
of exalting the spirit. So in the case of the eucharist, he goes 
so far as to make the body and blood of Christ nothing more 
than his word.* "His great, object," says Neander, " was to 
withstand the idea of a magical efficiency in the Supper, sepa- 
rately considered — which however the other church teachers were 
far from holding; but his view opposed in fact every conception 
of any sort of higher meaning or force in the outward signs, even 
such as was admitted by the African Church." 

It is hardly necessary to say that this view found compara- 
tively small favour in the Church. The tendency, indeed, was 
already towards an extreme the other way. We cannot say, that 
the presence of Christ was as yet confounded with the presence 
of the symbols, by which it was represented; but the feeling was 
strong, that the two were mystically bound together, and the 
language employed to express this thought became always more 
bold and absolute; till in the end the liturgical appellation 
Christ's " body and blood," applied to the bread and wine, might 
almost seem to have been taken by many, even long before the 

sense of its reality ! This, however, would be nothing less than tra'nsubstan- 
tiation itself. Ebrard exposes the extravagance of Rudeibach with just severitv, 
(p. 294-203.) The whole style of Tertullian's thinking stands opposed to 
every such construction of his words. He, and Cyprian, and Augustin, the 
founders and fathers, we may say, of the whole Western Latin theology, 
occupy here the very same ground, so far as we can judge, that was after- 
wards taken by the Reformed Church, in distinction both from the Lutheran 
and the Church of R.ome. 

* Nam corpus Dei Verbi aut sanguis, quid aliud esse potest, nisi verbum 
quod nutrit, et verbum quod laetificat cor ? — Pursuing his allegorical exegesis, 
he makes the body to be the word of the Old Testament, and the blood the 
word of the New ! See Ebrard, p. 274-277. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



135 



time of Paschasius Iiadbert, in a strictly literal and proper 
sense. 

Thus we hear Cyril, of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, in- 
sisting on the words of institution in such style as this: "When 
he himself has plainly said in relation to the bread, This is my 
body, who will presume to have any farther doubt? And when 
he has solemnly assured us, This is my blood, who will hesitate 
ever to say that it is Ins blood ? He changed water before into 
wine resembling blood, in Cana of Galilee; and shall we distrust 
him here as changing wine into blood?"* This sounds like 
transubstantiation itself in the fullest sense; and yet there is 
good reason to believe, that such was not the meaning of the 
worthy father himself, after all. 

Chrysostom uses very strong language too in the same direc- 
tion ; but he is, on the whole, more guarded, and less liable to 
misconstruction. He makes the sensible elements in the Sup- 
per to be indeed the form, under which its proper spiritual grace 
is brought near to the believer; as the washing with water in 
Baptism, is the outward exhibition of the grace of regeneration. 
But still the outward and inward are not made to flow absolutely 
together. The first is something, cucr^oY, for the senses ; the 
other is voqtov, not a mere thought, certainly, but something to be 
received by the soul, and not simply by the mouth. " If thou 
hadst been without a body," he says, " the grace might have 
come to thee in the same naked form* but since the soul is inter- 
woven with the body, he gives thee the spiritual in forms of sense 

Among the Latin fathers of the same period, we find Ambrose 
almost as bold in his representations as Cyril himself. " The 
sacrament you receive is wrought by the word of Christ. The 
word of Elias had power to bring down fire from heaven; and 
shall not the word of Christ avail to change the character (spe- 
ciem) of the elements? You have read, in relation to the whole 
work of creation, He spake and it was done, he commanded and 
it stood fast ; and shall not the word of Christ, which could thus 
call out of nothing that which was not, be able also to change 
things that are into what they were not before ?"$ And yet he 

* Cateches. 4. The terms ^faGo?^, |Uf tfatfaMftf^ax, (ASTfaixogtyovG^aL, 
&c, were familiarly applied at this time to the change which was supposed to 
take place in the elements, by their consecration. A new character was held 
to be imparted to them by the influence of the Holy Ghost, which made them 
to be what they were not before, in a sacramental sense. Still no idea was 
entertained of an actual transmutation of the bread and wine into Christ's 
body and blood. They were regarded only as having a supernatural character 
communicated to them, in virtue of which they served to bring those who 
partook of them into communion with Christ's true body and blood. 

t Horn. 8.2, in Matthaei evangelium. \ De initiandis, cap. 9. 



136 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE 



says, in his exposition of Luke, again, " Tangimus Christum non 
corporali tactu, sed fide tantum." The change, then, which he 
supposed to be wrought in the bread by its consecration, was 
not such as to transmute it, in his view, actually into Christ's 
body; but served only to clothe it with a new power or virtue by 
the Holy Ghost, (Cyril's divine tisfafiforj,) that made it for the 
recipient the true medium of an actual communication with the 
body it represented. 

We have a much better representative of the faith of the 
Western Church, during this period, in Augustine, the great 
theological successor of Cyprian in the North of Africa. He 
distinguishes clearly between the outward and inward, in the 
sacramental transaction, the form of the sacrament and its sub- 
stance; and says of the bread, separately considered, that it is 
simply the sign of Christ's body.* In the sacraments, " aliud 
videtur, aliud intelligitur." He will hear of no oral communi- 
cation ; "quia gratia ejus non consumitur morsibus." Still, as 
Neander remarks, Augustine held a real conjunction, in the case 
of the Lord's Supper, between the signs and the things signified ; 
in virtue of which believers, (not unbelievers,) along with the 
outward form, were made to partake of its proper contents, the 
"res sacramenti" itself. And this res sacramcnti he held to be 
the union of believers with their one head Christ, and their 
closer union thus with one another, as members of his glorious 
mystical body, the Church. He asserts as clearly as Calvin the 
local circumscription of Christ's proper body in heaven; and of 
course makes our communion with him to be wholly by the 
Spirit. Still he represents it to be always a real communion. 
" Habe fidem, et tecum est, quern non vides."f 

It is not necessary here to refer to other authorities. Nor 
does the subject call us to trace, even in a general way, the 
course of the sacramental doctrine, as corrupted by the Catholic 
Church, in later times.f As before remarked, the gross errors 

* Non enim Dominus dubitavit dicere : Hoc est corpus meum, cum signum 
daret corporis sui. 

t See Neander's Kirchengesch. Bd. 2, Abth. 3, p. 1399-1401. 

t This is done at length by Prof. Ebrard, in the work which has been 
already mentioned. The progress of error, in this case, was very slow and 
insidious. It may be traced particularly in the gradual differences of repre- 
sentation, that appear in the different ancient liturgies. In time, the false 
view, which existed at first only in the form of feeling, began to claim autho- 
rity also in the form of distinct logical expression for the understanding. This, 
however, called forth, even in the ninth century, a very active protest. The 
doctrine of Paschasins Radbert, caused at first much commotion, and was 
strongly opposed by the monk Ratramn, Rabanus Maurus, John Scotus Eri- 
ge?ia, and many others. c< They did not deny," says Knapp, (Chr. Thcol. 
Wood-s Trans, vol. ii. p. 571,) e< the presence of the body and blood of Christ ; 
but they taught that this conversio or immutatio of the bread and wine is not 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



137 



of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass, only serve to 
show more impressively the truth of the position now insisted 
upon ; that the sacrament was felt, from the beginning, to involve 
not simply a memorial of Christ's sacrifice, but the very power 
of the sacrifice itself, as made present in his glorified life. To 
the consciousness of the early Church, the solemn ordinance 
was an exhibition immediately of the offering for sin made once 
for all by Christ's death ; in the participation of which, the be- 
liever was considered to receive the full benefit of it, as of a liv- 
ing atonement brought before God at the time. This, however, 
was felt to comprehend an actual reception of the life itself, in 
whose presence only such living and enduring virtue could be 
supposed to reside. The mere recollection of the atonement as 
a past fact, was not enough for the Christianity of those days; 
it must be apprehended and appropriated as a present reality, 
under a living form. Christ, must himself animate the sacra- 
ment, and be received in it as the soul of the sacrifice it repre- 
sented. All this, however, according to the faith of the first 
centuries, in a purely spiritual way. We hear of no transub- 
stantiation of the elements into Christ's body and blood, as 
afterwards taught by the Church of Rome. They are called, 
indeed, his body and blood; but only in a sacramental or liturgi- 
cal sense. We hear of no material or local presence of his flesh, 
in the Lutheran sense ; no tactual communication with his glori- 
fied body; no reception of his life in a simply oral way. But 
the fact of a real communication with this life, in its strictly 
human character, as comprehended in the sacramental transac- 
tion, (actio in actione,) is none the less, but only the more dis- 
tinctly asserted, we may say for this very reason. All Christian 
antiquity stands opposed here to the low rationalistic idea of a 
merely moral virtue in the eucharist. The faith of the Church 
became afterwards, it is true, the occasion of superstitious error, 
which had well nigh proved its own grave. The doctrine of the 
real presence h 7tvsvfiatv, degenerated into transubstantiation, or 
the real presence Ivca^xL The living memorial of Christ's one 
sacrifice, was converted itself into the new, continually repeated 
sacrifice of the mass. But the corruption of a great truth, may 

of a carnal, but of a spiritual nature ; that these elements are not transmuted 
into the real body and blood of Christ, but are signs or symbols of them. In 
manv points they approximated to the opinion of the Reformed theologians." 
That is, they insisted on what had been the general doctrine of the Church 
from the beginning, namely, that the elements were the body and blood of 
Christ, not literally, but mystically, as serving after their consecration to 
make them present in fact, though in a spiritual way, to the communicant. Any 
view lower than this was out of the question, as the Church then stood ; and 
even this was borne down at last by the force of the corruption that had now 
begun to usurp its place. 

12* 



138 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



never be urged reasonably against the authority of the truth 
itself. And of all forms of fanaticism, there is none more poor 
than the zeal, which in such circumstances seeks to rectify a 
gross extreme in one direction, by throwing itself blindly into 
the arms of an extreme equally gross in the other; and to re- 
venge itself upon an acknowledged abuse, is ready to demolish 
along with it the whole form of existence out of which it has 
grown. To clear ourselves of transubstantiation and the mass, 
is it necessary that we should strip the sacrament of all mystery, 
and refuse to allow it any objective force whatever ? So thought 
not the Reformers, as we have already seen. Not only Luther 
and Melancthon, but Calvin also, and Beza and Ursinus, and 
the fathers of the Reformed Church generally, discovered a pro- 
per anxiety here to save the substance of the primitive faith, 
while they endeavoured to rescue it from the errors with which 
it had become overlaid in the Church of Rome. They hon- 
oured, in this case as in other cases also, the authority of the 
ancient fathers, and the life of the early Church ; and they took 
pains accordingly to show, as far as they could, that this testi- 
mony, rightly interpreted and understood, was on their side, and 
not on the side of Rome. It was reserved for a later time, and 
for a theology of different spirit from that which generally pre- 
vailed in the sixteenth century, to treat this whole appeal with 
contempt, by charging the Church with corruption and super- 
stition from the very start, and pretending to construct the 
entire scheme of Christianity de novo from the scriptures, with- 
out any regard to the primitive faith whatever. 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



139 



SECTION IV. 

RATIONALISM AND THE SECTS. 

The modern Puritan theory of the Lord's Supper, as it in- 
volves a falling away from the general faith of the Reformation, 
finds at the same time no sanction whatever in the faith of the 
primitive Church. This of itself constitutes certainly a power- 
ful presumption against it. What right, we may ask, has Puri- 
tanism had to depart thus from the creed of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and the creed of whole ancient Christianity, at the same 
time? The right of private judgment, it may be replied, against 
the authority of tradition. But is not tradition itself in this case 
the judgment merely, which has been entertained of the sense of 
the bible by the Reformers and the early Church? Why then 
should the particular judgment of Puritanism, as such, be al- 
lowed to carry with it any such weight as is needed to bear 
down the judgment of the universal Church besides from the 
beginning? In the very nature of the case, strong grounds and 
solid arguments should be exhibited, to justify this modern par- 
ticularity of faith, in its palpable defection from the general creed 
of Christendom, with regard to an article so momentous as the 
one now under contemplation. The presumption here, I repeat 
it, is against modern Puritanism. The simple statement of the 
case, is adapted prima facie, when fairly understood, to create an 
impression unfavourable to its claims. 

But this is not all. A still farther presumption against the 
same view, is created by the fact that in departing from the faith 
of the Reformation, it is found to be in full harmony with the 
false Pelagian tendency, by which the truth under other forms, 
as originally held by the Reformers, has been so widely subverted 
in different Protestant lands. The modern Puritan view of the 
Lord's Supper, is constitutionally rationalistic. 

As a matter of course, the Socinians of the sixteenth century 
sunk the conception of the sacraments to the general level of 
their false theological system. As they denied the divinity of 
the Saviour, and reduced the whole Christian salvation to a mere 
system of morality, they could see in the sacraments naturally 
nothing more than external, simply human ceremonies. Their 
idea was, that Christianity, as a spiritual religion, had no de- 
pendence on forms and rites as such ; and hence in this case, 
they made no account whatever of any virtue or force, that 



140 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



might be supposed to belong to the sacraments themselves, con- 
sidered as divine institutions. To attribute to them any objec- 
tive value, they counted mere Jewish ritualism. " For how," it 
is asked, " can that serve to confirm us in faith, which we do our- 
selves, and which though commanded of God is still our own 
work, including or exhibiting nothing remarkable, and having 
no fitness to convince or persuade us of the truth of any of 
those things, by which our faith is confirmed." (F. Soc. Opp. 
1. p. 753.) The sacraments are made to be, " mutuae inter Deum 
ac homines sacrae confederations tessera." The idea of a real 
presence of any sort in the Lord's Supper, is held to be a mere 
superstition; all is turned into a naked commemoration of 
Christ's benefits. 

In the Lord's Supper, we receive according to the Lord's own word, 
nothing from the ordinance itself save bread and wine ; but we com- 
memorate past favours and give thanks for them." F. Soc. Opp. I. 
p. 753. 

" Quest. What is the Lord's Supper ? 

"Ans. The appointment of Christ that his saints should break and 
eat bread and drink of the cup, in order to show forth his death ; 
which is to continue till his advent. 

" Quest. But what is it to show forth the Lord's death ? 

"Ans. Publicly and solemnly to give thanks to Christ, that out 
of his ineffable love towards us, he suffered his body to be tortured, 
and in a sense broken, and his blood to be shed ; and to extol and 
magnify the kindness he has shown to us in this way." Bac. Cat. 
Qu. 334, 335. 

44 Quest. Is there no other reason for the institution? 

"Ans. There is no other (nulla prorsus) ; though many have been 
imagined, &c." Ib. Qu. 337. 

" Quest. What is the meaning of the words, This is my body ! 

"Ans. They are variously understood, for some suppose that the 
bread is changed really into the body and the wine into the blood ; 
which they call transubstantiation. Others imagine the body of the 
Lord to be in the bread, under the bread, with the bread. There are 
those finally, who believe that they partake of the Lord's body and 
blood in the Supper, though only in a spiritual way. But all these 
opinions are fallacious and erroneous." Ib. Qu. 340. 

With the rise of Arminianism in the following century, in the 
bosom of the Reformed Church, we find a similar undervaluation 
of the sacraments, reducing them in the end again to mere signs. 

" We hold the sacraments to be sacred and solemn rites, by which 
as covenant signs and seals, God not only represents and adumbrates, 
but in a certain sense also exhibits and confirms, his benefits promised 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



141 



especially in the gospel covenant." Confess. Re monst. xxiii. 1. Drawn 
up by Simon Episcopas A, D. 1622. 

" We may say that God exhibits his grace to us through the sac- 
raments, not as conferring it by them actually, but by employing them 
as clear signs to represent it and set it before our eyes. They operate 
upon us as signs, that represent to our mind the thing whose signs 
they are. Nor should any other efficacy be sought in them. — They 
promote piety besides on our part, as involving an obligation to duty, 
of the same nature with a soldier's oath." Limborch Theol. Chr. v. 
66, 31, 32. 

" The Lord's Supper is the other sacred rite of the New Testament, 
instituted by Jesus Christ, on the night in which he was betrayed, 
for the eucharistic and solemn commemoration of his death ; in which 
believers, after proper self-examination and assurance of their own 
faith, eat sacred bread publicly broken in the congregation, and drink 
wine publicly poured out, to show forth with solemn action of thanks, 
the Lord's bloody death endured for our sake, (by which our hearts, 
as the body is nourished by meat and drink, are fed and strengthened 
to the hope of eternal life) ; and also to testify publicly before God 
and the Church, their living spiritual communion with Christ's cru- 
cified body and shed blood, (or with Jesus Christ himself as crucified 
and dead for us), and so with all the benefits procured by his death, 
as well as their love to one another." Conf. Remonst. xxiii. 4.* 

The triumph of Rationalism, during the eighteenth century, in 
Germany and throughout Europe generally, brought with it of 
course a still more extensive degradation of religious views. It 
is not necessary here to trace the rise of this apostacy. and its 
connection with the previous state of Protestantism. f Enough 
to say, that it grew out of a tendency involved in the very nature 
of Protestantism from the beginning ; the opposite exactly of 
that by which the Catholic Church previously had been carried 
into an equally false extreme, on the other side. As Romanism 
had sacrificed the rights of the individual to the authority of the 
genera], — the claims of the subjective to the overwhelming 
weight of the objective; so the tendency of Protestantism may 
be said to have been from the very start, to assert these same 
rights and claims in the way of violent reaction, at the cost of 
the opposite interest. In the age of the Reformation itself, 
deeply imbued as it was with the positive life of truth and faith, 
this tendency was powerfully held within limits. With Luther, 
and Calvin, and the Reformers generally, the principle of freedom 
was still held in check by the principle of authority, and the rea- 
son of the individual was required to bend to the idea of a divine 

* " Hac in re," says Episcopius, c£ assentientes sibi habent non paucos 
Reformatos, inter quos Zwinglius, optimus hnjus ceremonise doctor, princeps 
est." Limborch expressly opposes the Calvinistic theory. 

t For a brief but clear sketch of this, the reader is referred to Prof. Schaf's 
Principle of Protestantism, p. 98-102. 



142 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



revelation as something broader and more sure than itself. It 
came not however in all this, it must be confessed, to a true in- 
ward reconciliation of these polar forces. The old orthodoxy, 
it is now generally allowed, particularly under the form it car- 
ried in the Lutheran Church, involved in itself accordingly the 
necessity of such a process of inward conflict and dissolution, as 
it has since been called to pass through ; in order that the con- 
tradiction which was lodged in its bosom, might come fairly into 
view, and the way be opened thus for its reconstruction, under 
a form at once more perfect and more true to its own nature. 
The characteristic tendency of Protestantism already mentioned, 
burst finally through all the counteracting force, with which it 
had been restrained in the beginning. Religion ran out into 
sheer subjectivity ; first in the form of Pietism, and afterwards 
in the overflowing desolation of Rationalism, reducing all to the 
character of the most flat natural morality. The eighteenth 
century was characteristically infidel. As an age, it seemed to 
have no organ for the supernatural. All was made to shrink to 
the dimensions of the mere human spirit, in its isolated character. 
Theology of course was robbed of all its higher life. Even the 
supernaturalism of the period was rationalistic; and occupying 
as it did in fact a false position with regard to the truth, by which 
a measure of right was given to the rival interest, it proved alto- 
gether incompetent to maintain its ground against the reigning 
spirit. The views of rationalism may be said to infect the whole 
theology of this period, and also of the first part of the present 
century, openly heretical and professedly orthodox alike. 

In the nature of the case, this may be expected to show itself 
in low views of the sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 
Rationalism is too spiritual, to make much account of outward 
forms and services of any sort in religion. All must be resolved 
into the exercises of the worshipper's own mind. The subjective 
is every thing; the objective next to nothing. Hence the super- 
natural itself is made to sink into the form of the simply moral. 
The sacraments of course become signs, and signs only. Any 
power they may have is not to be found in them, but altogether 
in such use merely as a pious soul may be able to make of them, 
as occasions for quickening its own devout thoughts and feelings. 

Under the force of this predominant spirit, even the more 
sound theologians of the period now in view, are found lamenta- 
bly defective in their representations of the Lord's Supper, as 
compared with the true Protestant fathers of the Sixteenth Cen- 
tury. Such men as Zacharia, Mursinna, Doderlein, Knapp, 
Steudel } &/C.,* no longer venture to speak of a real communica- 

* Nor can any exception be made, with regard to this point, even in favor 
of Storr and Reinhard. They do indeed employ language, which seems at 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



143 



tion with Christ's body and blood in the old sense. For the old 
doctrine, they substitute at best a simple prascntiam uperativam ; 
by which all is resolved in the end into the idea of a mere hea- 
venly efficacy; supernatural it is true, but still moral only, as 
being nothing more than an occasion to call out pious exercises 
on the part of tjie worshipper himself. Men of less pretension 
to orthodoxy, and for this reason more consistently rationalistic 
in their thinking, Henke, Ecktrmann, the elder Nitzsch, Hase, 
De Wette, Wegscheider, &c, discard the idea of a celestial sub- 
stance in the sacrament entirely, and find its whole meaning at 
once in the sphere of mere nature and common life. 

" The design of the Holy Supper is this ; that all who profess the 
name of Christ, while they partake of the broken bread as a sign of 
his crucified body, and of the wine as the symbol of his shed blood, 
may thankfully remember the benefits which they owe to their Re- 
deemer, and so be incited to fulfil all the duties to which they are 
bound. Along with this main end Paul mentions another also, 1 Cor. 

times to imply a participation in the very substance of Christ's life ; but this 
is so qualified and modified again by a different phraseology, that all runs out 
at last into the idea of mere supernatural influence or power. Reinhard pre- 
tends, indeed, to censure the Reformed view as too low; but he misrepresents it 
by charging it with the error of holding the elements to be mere signs ; whereas 
they should be regarded, he says, as exhibitive also of what they represent. 
This, however, as we have seen, was always the true doctrine of the Reformed 
Church itself. Then he affirms that we receive in, with and under the bread 
and wine, the true body and blood of Christ; but immediately explains this to 
be, in other words, "that the exalted God-man Jesus works, (exerts an influ- 
ence,) by his body and blood, on all who make use of this ceremony." Again, 
by 66 presence," he understands simply, <c nothing more than the power to 
exert an influence at a particular place." Dogmatik, §. 162. Storr, in the 
judgment of Bret Schneider, does not get beyond the same view ; and to be 
satisfied of this, we need only to read attentively all that he says on the sub- 
ject, in §. 114 of his Dogmatik. The words of institution mean, he tells us, 
" This bread makes you participant of my body — this wine hands over to you 
my blood," and argues at large against the figurative interpretation of Zuingli 
and (Ecolampadkis. But all comes at last to this, that the Lord Jesus, in whose 
person humanity and divinity are inseparably united, is actually present at the 
celebration of the Supper, and " exerts his influence there in an incompre- 
hensible manner." The believer derives actual nourishment from Christ, 
more than is comprehended in the simple exercise of his own faith and trust ; 
but still it is in the form of a " salutary influence," mysteriously proceeding 
from his person, rather than by an actual participation in his very life itself. 
In this respect, the doctrine of Storr and Reinhard, undoubtedly falls short 
of the doctrine taught by Calvin; for it is not to be questioned, that this last 
had in his mind always, as much as Luther himself, the idea of a true repro- 
duction of Christ's life in the believer, an actual extension of its very sub- 
stance into the believer's soul, and not simply an operation proceeding from 
this life, under however high a form. — Professor Schmucker, of this country, 
in his translation of the Biblical Theology of Storr and Flatt, 1826, has an 
appendix to this section on the Eucharist, in which he brings forward the con- 
current view of Reinhard, backed by the authority of Mosheim, as a fair 
exhibition of the proper Lutheran doctrine. And yet it was considered by 
many an evidence of the strong power of sectarian prejudice, that the Ameri. 
can Lutheran Professor should have allowed himself at the time, to go so far 
as to endorse, apparently, the doctrine of the real presence, even in the con- 
venient sense of these " sober and judicious" divines ! 



144 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



x. 17, namely, that when we come to the table in common, we call 
to mind the natural love that is required of those who profess the 
same religion, and show ourselves ready to maintain it." — Mursinna. 
Lehrb. der Dogm. p. 267, 268. 

" Nor is it difficult to understand and show, what force this sacra- 
ment has in itself to affect the mind, — Its efficacy, in the way of ex- 
citing and quickening faith, and for the purposes of piety, is clear. 
— Some however may say, if the eucharist furnish nothing more than 
this opportunity of calling to mind Christ's benefits, as already before 
us in the word, it seems to be a superfluous rite. So far am 1 how- 
ever from thinking any institution to be superfluous which brings the 
truth, though otherwise known, with new force before the mind, it 
appears to me suitable to the gravity and dignity of the subject rather, 
that it should be presented to the understanding and memory, not in 
one way only, but in manifold ways. — The virtue of the Lord's Sup- 
per, therefore, like that of Baptism, does not differ from the power of 
the divine word. Like this it is logico-moral, worthy thus of the 
divine wisdom and of the christian religion, including also the influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, who makes use of the bread and wine as in- 
struments to excite such affections as are pious and pleasing to God." 
—Doderlein. Inst. TheoL Ch. p. 691—694. 

" The Holy Spirit acts upon the hearts of men through the Supper, 
or through the bread and wine, and by this means produces faith and 
pious dispositions. But he produces this effect through the word, or 
through the truths of Christianity, exhibited before us and presented 
to us in this ordinance. The effect of the Lord's Supper is therefore 
an effect, which is produced by God and Christ, through his word, or 
the truths of his doctrine, and the use of the same. In this sacrament 
of the Supper, the most important truths of Christianity, which we 
commonly only hear or read, are visibly set before us, made cogniza- 
ble to the senses, and exhibited in such a way as powerfully to move 
the feelings, and make an indelible impression on the memory." — 
Knapp. Led. on Chr. TheoL, Wood's Translation, vol. ii. p. 562. 

" Hence it appears that the internal efficacy of the Lord's Supper, 
or of the word of God through the Supper, is two-fold. 

First. This ordinance is the means of exciting and strengthening 
the faith of one who worthily celebrates it, &c. — For we are reminded 
by it, 1st. Of the death of Christ, &c. 2d. Of the causes, &c. &c. 

Secondly. In this way does this ordinance contribute to maintain 
and promote piety among believers, &c." Ibid. p. 563. 

" The better way, therefore, in exhibiting either the Lutheran or 
Reformed doctrine, is, to avoid these subtleties, and merely take the 
general position, that Christ, as man and as the Son of God, may 
exert his agency, may act, whenever and in whatever manner he 
pleases. He therefore may exert his power at his table, as well as 
elsewhere. This is perfectly scriptural ; and it is also the sense and 
spirit of the Protestant theory. And this doctrine concerning the 
nearness of Christ, his assistance, and strengthening influence, in his 
present exalted state, secures eminently that proper inward enjoy- 
ment, which Lutheran and Reformed christians, and even Catholics, 
with all their diversity of speculation on this point, may have alike 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



145 



in the Lord's Supper. Christ, when he was about to leave the world, 
no more to be seen by his followers with the mortal eye, left them 
this Supper, as a visible pledge of his presence, his protection, and 
love." Ibid. p. 577. 

" The meaning of Christ seems to have been, that the close inti- 
macy which had subsisted thus far between him and his friends, 
should not be interrupted by his death ; but that it was his desire now 
especially to give himself to them as he was, to be and remain wholly 
theirs in the most intimate conjunction. As therefore they were now 
taking bread and wine, so he ought to be himself received by his dis- 
ciples, his whole discipline, his spirit and example, with all the bene- 
fits about to be procured by his death, so as to be converted as it were 
into their very flesh and blood, &c." — Henke. Lin. Fid. Chr. p. 252. 

"The sacred Supper is the solemn participation of bread and wine, 
as symbols of Christ's death, by which such as attend upon it, being 
impressively reminded of this death and of the general merit of Christ, 
but especially of his instruction and example, are excited and engaged 
to true piety towards God and Christ, as also to kindness towards 
others, and are imbued at the same time with the hope of obtaining 
by their virtue the pardon of sin and everlasting felicity. Thus the 
bread and wine in the eucharist, are not only properly called signs 
significant, but also signs or symbols exhibitive ; inasmuch as they do 
in a certain moral way represent to communicants the whole Christ, 
such and so great as that divine teacher was who sealed his doctrine 
with his blood, and forcibly press upon them the duty of following 
him with decision, so as not to shrink even from enduring death, after 
his example, for what is true and right. Although the rite, regarded 
as a manducation of human flesh and potation of human blood, whe- 
ther really or sj^mbolically, is not so suitable to the views and man- 
ners of the modern world, as to those of antiquity ; still, even for our 
age, if administered with becoming regard to its advanced cultivation, 
it is capable of being turned to excellent moral account. Hence it is 
greatly to be wished, that its more frequent use might be encouraged, 
&Q."—Wegscheider. Inst. Theul. § 180.* 

* Even the more sound theologians of this period, Reinhard, Knapp, &c, 
hold that the salutary influence of the sacrament does not depend at all on 
the view that may be taken of its nature; a judgment that may be allowed to 
be correct within certain limits, though not in the form, nor to the extent 
exactly, in which it is to be understood, probably, with these divines. Bret- 
schneider, according to whom the original institution was simply a solemn 
covenant meal, designed to proclaim, symbolically, the introduction of the 
new dispensation, to which other references and uses were subsequently 
attached, considers that the benefit to be derived from it is not suspended 
absolutely even on a full faith in Christ's death as the ground of our salvation. 
" For one who does not honour Jesus as a Mediator, but simply as a teacher of 
divine truth and a benefactor of mankind, who sacrificed his life to the noblest 
ends, may still, by the celebration of his death, be excited to like zeal for 
truth and virtue, to improvement, and to perseverance in the conflict with 
superstition and vice, and be filled thus with the presentiment also of a better 
world. The great design of Christianity, which is to free men from sin and 
to prepare them for a higher life, is in that case advanced in him as well as in 
others, though in a different way; and hence the Lord's Supper becomes for 
him too a salutary sacrament." Dogmatik, $. 200. 



146 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



These extracts may suffice to illustrate the genius of Ration- 
alism, as it regards the point now under consideration. Let us 
rejoice, that its iron sceptre is at length broken, for the territory 
of theological science at least, where not a great while since all 
seemed to acknowledge its sway ; and that a new and brighter 
era has already begun to dawn auspiciously on the history of the 
Protestant Church. The authority of interpreters, like Paulus 
and Quindl, and theologians such as Amnion, Wegsclieider and 
Bret Schneider, God be praised, has become to the religious world 
like the idle wind which no man regards. Along with it, how- 
ever, the authority of what may be styled the relative orthodoxy 
of the same period has in like manner passed away. John David 
Michaelis is felt to be as little worthy of confidence as the un- 
fortunate Sernler. The supernaturalism of the school of Ernesti 
and Morns, cool, mechanical, external, the product of the under- 
standing only, is found almost as unreal and unsubstantial, as 
the openly infidel theology with which it waged unsuccessful 
war. Who now, of any true theological culture, thinks of taking 
the Rosenmullers, or Koppe and his continuators, for his guides 
in the study of the scriptures? Who that is aware* at all of the 
true historical stand-point of the age, can sit at the feet of such 
men as Mursinna, and Doderlein, and Flatt, and Siorr, and 
Reinhard, and Knapp, for instruction in the mysteries of the 
Christian faith? They are all indeed venerable names, and they 
are entitled to the lasting respect of the Church for their fidelity 
to Christ in a time of general apostacy and defection. The re- 
sults of their learning too will always continue to be of value for 
Christianity, at least in an indirect way. But they stood them- 
selves in a false position with regard to the truth ; and they were 
not able accordingly to stem the tide, which was bearing all 
thought and all life the contrary way. So far as any better order 
of religion has come to prevail, it must be referred to other in- 
fluences altogether. The salvation of theology has sprung from 
a different quarter. The very orthodoxy of the school now no- 
ticed was itself rationalistic ; and we may say of it, in this view, 
that it served only to precipitate the catastrophe which it sought 
to avert. For its conception of the supernatural was always 
external and abstract; placing it thus in the same false relation 
precisely to nature and humanity, which was established by 
Rationalism itself. This was to justify the wrong issue on which 
the controversy had been made to hang, and to make common 
cause in a certain sense with the enemy, by consenting to meet 
him on his own ground, the arena of the mere finite understand- 
ing. No wonder, that the supernatural thus defended, was found 
unable to sustain itself against the reigning tendency of the age. 
No wonder, that it yielded to this tendency more and more itself, 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



147 



and went finally to swell the triumphant stream with which all 
was carried in this downward directions- 
Parallel to a great extent with the development of the subjec- 
tive principle in the false form now noticed, runs the revelation 
also of the same tendency in the equally false form of Seclar- 
ism and schism. No one can study attentively the character of 
either, without being led to see that the two tendencies are but 
different phases of one and the same spiritual obliquity.f No 
one, in reading the history of the Church, can well fail to be 
struck with the many points of correspondence, which are found 
universally to hold between the two forms of life, in spite of the 
broad difference by which they might seem to be separated, in 
many cases, on a superficial view. The spirit of sect is charac- 
teristically full of religious pretension ; and professing to make 
supreme account of religion as something personal and experi- 
mental, it assumes always a more than ordinarily spiritual cha- 
racter, and moves in the element of restless excitement and ac- 
tion. Hence it is often, generally indeed at the start, fanatical 
and wild ; especially in the way of opposition to outward forms 
and the existing order of the Church generally. And yet how 
invariably it falls in with the rationalistic way of thinking, as far 
as it may -think at all, from the very beginning ; and how cer- 
tainly its principles and views, when carried out subsequently to 

* It deserves to be well considered, that it is mainly the theology of this 
rationalistic period, which has been derived from Germany thus far into our 
American divinity, so far as any such importation may have taken place. 
Those among us who have had some acquaintance with German learning, and 
to whom we are indebted, it may be, for translations of German theological 
works, show themselves unfortunately, for the most part, at least twenty years, 
if not a full half century, behind the true scientific stand-point of the present 
time ; by exhibiting principles of interpretation and theological views, in the 
name of theology properly so styled, which in Germany itself are acknow- 
ledged to be shorn of all their force. Nor is the error helped materially, by 
making a supposed judicious distinction, in this case, between the orthodoxy 
of the period and its avowed religious infidelity. The whole posture of the 
time was rationalistic. Ernesti, for instance, is entitled to no confidence 
whatever, as a guide to the true sense of God's word, as it is spirit and life. 
Knapp, with all his orthodoxy, comes short, perpetually, of the true depth of 
Christianity as a science. When we find this school of theology recognized 
and honoured by a wide section of the American Church, as the only valuable 
and only safe form of German thinking in the sphere of religion ; while the 
far deeper and infinitely more spiritual efforts, by which the theology of the 
present time, in the hands of such men as Vomer, G. A. Meier, Julius Mut- 
ter, a'nd others of like spirit, is struggling to surmount forever the contra- 
dictions of the old stand-point, are superciliously condemned as transcen- 
dental nonsense; it is certainly not easy to possess one's soul in proper 
patience. Alas, it is but too plain, that with all our boasted orthodoxy, the 
coils of Rationalism have fastened themselves with deadly embrace on the 
thinking at least, (though not on the hearts we may trust,) of hundreds, who 
are the last to dream of any such thing. 

t On this subject, the reader is referred again to Schaf's Principle of Pro- 
testantism, p. 107-121. 



14S 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



their legitimate results, are found to involve in the end the worst 
errors of Rationalism itself. Both systems are antagonistic to 
the idea of the Church. Both are disposed to trample under 
foot the authority of history. Both make the objective to be 
nothing, and the subjective to be all in all. Both undervalue 
the outward, in favour of what they conceive to be the inward. 
Both despise forms, under pretence of exalting the spirit. Both 
of course sink the sacraments to the character of mere outward 
rites; or possibly deny their necessity altogether. Both affect 
to make much of the bible; at least in the beginning; though 
sometimes indeed it is made to yield, with Sectarism, to the ima- 
gination of some superior inward light more directly from God; 
and in all cases, it is forced to submit, to the tyranny of mere 
private interpretation, as the only proper measure of its sense. 
With both forms of thinking, the idea of Christianity, as a per- 
manent order of life, a real supernatural constitution unfolding 
itself historically in the world, is we may say wanting altogether. 
All at last is flesh, the natural life of man as such ; exalted it may 
be in its own order, but never of course transcending itself so 
as to become spirit. The sect principle may indeed affect to 
move in the highest sphere of the heavenly and divine; carry- 
ing it possibly to an absolute rupture even with all that belongs 
to the present world. But in this case it begins in the spirit, 
only to end the more certainly in the flesh. Hyper-spiritualism 
is ever fleshly pseudo-spiritualism ; that is sure to fall back 
sooner or later impotent and self-exhausted, into the low element 
from which it has vainly pretended to make its escape. Ana- 
baptism finds its legitimate, natural end in the excesses of Mini- 
ster; as Mormonism in the like excesses of Nauvoo. What a 
difference apparently between the inspiration of George Fox, 
and the cold infidelity of Elias Hicks. And yet the last is the 
true spiritual descendant of the first. The inward light of the 
one, and the light of reason as held by the other, come to the 
same thing at last. Both contradict the true conception of re- 
ligion. Both are supremely subjective, and in this view su- 
premely rationalistic at the same time. 

It is by no fortuitous coincidence then, that we find the spirit 
of sect since the Reformation, (as indeed before it also,) in close 
affinity with the spirit of theoretic rationalism, in its low estimate 
of the Christian sacraments. The relationship of the two sys- 
tems, in the case, is inward and real. The Anabaptists and 
Socinians of the sixteenth century, go here hand in hand to- 
gether ; as do also the Mennonites and Arminians of Holland, 
in the century following. All hold the sacraments to be signs 
only for the understanding and heart of the pious communicant, 
without any objective value or force in their own nature. All 



MODERN rURITAN THEORY. 



149 



alike reduce them to the character of something outward and 
accidental only to the true Christian life. The Quakers, more 
consistently true than all sects besides to the spiritualistic theory 
out of which the sect life springs, agree with infidelity itself, in 
rejecting the sacraments altogether.* Not from the Christ with- 
out, the objective historical Christ, as revealing himself in the 
Church and exhibited in the sacramental symbols, but only from 
the Christ within, the interior spiritual life of the believer him- 
self, is any true salvation to be expected. " Whenever the soul 
is turned towards the light of the Lord within, and is thus made 
to participate of the celestial life that nourishes the interior man, 
(the privilege of the believer at any time,) it may be said to en- 
joy the Lord's Supper, and to partake of his flesh and blood." 
To insist upon the outward sacraments is to fall back to Juda- 
ism, and to magnify rites and forms at the cost of that spiritual 
worship, which alone is worthy of our own nature, or suitable 
to the character of God. 

The anti-sacramental tendency of the sect spirit is strikingly 
revealed under its true rationalistic nature, in the disposition so 
commonly shown by it to reject infant baptism. If the sacra- 
ments are regarded as in themselves outward rites only, that can 
have no value or force except as the grace they represent is 
made to be present by the subjective exercises of the worshipper, 
it is hard to see on what ground infants, who are still without 
knowledge or faith, should be admitted to any privilege of the 
sort. If there be no objective reality in the life of the Church, 
as something more deep and comprehensive than the life of the 
individual believer separately taken, infant baptism becomes 
necessarily an unmeaning contradiction. Hence invariably, (as 
already remarked in the first part of the present chapter,) where 
the true church consciousness is brought to yield to the spirit 
of sect, the tendency to depreciate the ordinance in this form is 
found to prevail to the same extent; and so on the other hand, 
there is no more sure criterion and measure of the presence of 
the sect spirit, as distinguished from the true spirit of the Church, 
than the tendency now mentioned, wherever it may be exhibited. 
The baptistic principle, whether carried out fully in practice or 
not, constitutes the certain mark of sectarianism all the world 
over.t It may be controlled in many cases by outward influ- 

* " Nihil aliud hrereditatis nostra? signaturam et arrhabonem nominat scrip- 
tura prater spiritum Dei." Bard. Apol. The Lord's Supper, originally 
observed, (( imbecillium causa," was only a shadow, he tells us, that is no 
longer needed for those who have the substance. 

t " Why are the Congregationalists, or Baptists, any more a sect than the 
German Reformed or the Episcopalians ?" Thus asks the Biblical Repertory, 
in its review of Schaf on Protestantism, (Oct. 1845,) charging the author with 
being vague in what he says on the subject of sectarism. The question is 

13* 



150 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



ences, or by some remnant possibly of church feeling still pre- 
served, so as not to come openly into view; but it will be found 
then as a worm at least at the root of the institution here in 
view, consuming all its vigor, and turning it in fact into the 
powerless form for which it is unbelievingly and rationalistically 
taken. Where it comes, however, to a full triumph of the sect 
character, the baptistic principle, for the most part, asserts its 
authority in a more open way. Infant baptism is discarded as a 
relic of Roman superstition. Here again the Anabaptists and 
Mennonites appear in close connection with Socinians and 
Arminians; whose judgment at least with regard to the point in 
hand, though not their practice, has ever been substantially the 
same. According to the Racovian Catechism, the baptism of 
infants is without authority and without reason, and to be tole- 
rated only as a harmless inveterate prejudice.* The Remon- 
strants of Holland, (Arminians,) much in the same way, declare 
the rite worthy of being continued to avoid scandal, but hold it 
to be of no binding authority in its own nature.f In our own 
country, as was remarked before, we have, at the present time, 
an exemplification of the sect feeling at this point, on a large 
scale. The Baptists, as they are called, including all the sects 
that reject the baptism of infants, form, it is said, the most 
numerous religious profession in the United States: and the 
baptistic principle, it is plain, prevails still more widely, where 
the practice, through the force of denominational tradition, re- 
mains of an opposite character. 

It appears then that the spirit of heresy, and the spirit of 
schism, in the case before us, are substantially one and the same. 
Both are unchurchly and anti-sacramental, to the same extent. 
It is not an accidental resemblance simply, that connects them 
together in this view; but the inward power of a common life. 
It belongs to the very genius of sect to be rationalistic.^ 

certainly very striking, in view of the quarter from which it comes. Only 
think of Baxter, or any sound Presbyterian of the seventeenth century, asking 
such a question in relation even to Congregationalism ! But here the very 
Baptists themselves, whom the New England Congregationalists of that period 
could not tolerate in their midst, are exalted to the same church level with 
the churches of the Reformation generally. This, of itself, betrays a most 
low conception of the Church, and a strange confusion in relation to the idea 
of sect. Neither Calvin nor Luther could have endured the thought, of being 
associated in this way with a spirit so utterly unhistorical, unchurchly, and 
unsacramental, as that which is presented to us in the Anabaptist schism from 
beginning to end. 

* Errorem adeo inveteratum et pervulgatum Christiana charitas tolerare 
suadet. Rac. Cat. 

t Remonstrantes ritum baptizandi, infantes ut perantiquum haud illubenter 
etiam in coetibus suis admittunt, adeoque vix sine offensione et scandalo 
magno intermitti posse statuunt; tantum abest ut eum seu illicitum aut ne- 
fastum improbent ac damnent. Apolog. Remonst. 

X Ronge, the famous head of the " German Catholic" movement, now 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



151 



And now it cannot be denied, that the modern Puritan theory 
of the Lord's Supper, as it has been presented to us in contrast 
with the old Calvinistic doctrine, is strikingly in harmony with 
the whole style of thinking here offered to our view. This must 
be apparent at once to any one, who will only take the trouble 
to refer again to the illustrations of the Puritan theory that have 
been already quoted, and to compare them with the modes of 
thought and language employed by the rationalistic school on 
the same subject. The ground on which much of our Ameri- 
can theology is here standing at the present time, is palpably 
the same with that occupied by the old rationalistic supernatural- 
ism of Germany ; which was found so insufficient, as we have 
just seen, to maintain itself scientifically against the neology 
with which it was called to contend. It is the orthodoxy at 
best of such men as Ernesti and Morus, Reinhard and Knapp; 
only with a very small part of their learning. Its safety is found 
in the fact, that it has for the most part no power to perceive 
the contradiction it carries in its own bosom. But with all this, 
the false element works itself out in many practical conse- 
quences, alike mischievous for theology and for the religious life 
in general. 

engaging so much attention, shows here also his true theological stand-point. 
Christ laid down his life, according to this man, to open the way for the more 
rapid spread of his salutary doctrine in the world ; and the Supper was insti- 
tuted to keep up his memory, and to be the standing <e brother-meal of 
humanity,'* in all times. See a notice of the Easter Service held last year in 
Berlin, by Ronge and Czersky, in the correspondence of Krummacher's Palm- 
blatter , for June, 1845. How invariably the rationalistic and sectaristic spirit 
betrays itself just at this point, and always in the same way ! This Ronge, it 
will be remembered, was hailed by our religious papers generally, at first, as 
a second Huss or Luther. But it is in the highest degree dishonourable to the 
Reformation, to think of it as parallel, in any measure, with such a move- 
ment. Ronge is no Reformer, but a Radical only, of the worst stamp. Like 
Luther, he has indeed cast off the authority of Rome. But the resemblance 
of the two cases is merely in outward form. Luther was full of positive life ; 
Ronge is negative wholly, and destitute of all faith in Christianity as a real 
life-revelation in the world. Luther stood in the element of the objective, and 
felt himself to be the passive organ only of the true and proper historical life 
of the Church itself; Ronge is supremely subjective, unhistorical, and full of 
blind self-will. Luther was himself the first, central, and in some sense 
fontal, product of the vast spiritual revolution in which he led the way ; it 
came to the birth with deep, convulsive throes, in his separate personal con- 
sciousness, before it revealed itself in the rest of the Church, already ripe for 
the change. Ronge stands in no such relation to the inmost religious life of 
the age, in which he affects to play the spiritual hero. No world-convulsion 
has gone forward, in the first place, in his own soul. His vocation is evidently 
superficial and outward, in the fullest sense; and the movement over which 
he presides is as plainly distinguished throughout by the same character. God 
may make it indirectly subservient at last, in some way, to the advancement 
of his kingdom ; but, in its own nature, it belongs not at all to this kingdom, 
but to the world only. — See an excellent article on the whole subject, by Pro- 
fessor Ullmann, characterized by his usual caution, moderation, and profound 
historical wisdom, in the Studien und Kritiken, for the last year. 



152 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



It is not necessary that we should be able to trace any out- 
ward connection between the two forms of theology thus com- 
pared, to establish their actual affinity. It is enough that they 
are inwardly connected, and that they belong to the same gene- 
ral development of a false tendency comprehended in Protest- 
antism itself. This tendency has shown its power from the be- 
ginning, as a spirit of heresy in one direction, and a spirit of 
schism in another ; but it may be said to have come to the fullest 
revelation of its bad life, during the last century and the first 
part of the present. That the modern Puritan theology should 
be deeply affected by its influence, might seem to be in the cir- 
cumstances precisely what was to be expected. Puritanism, as 
all know, involves in its original constitution a large measure of 
the tendency which has just been mentioned. It formed from 
the start, a marked advance, in this direction, upon the charac- 
ter of the Reformed Church, as it stood in the beginning; 
showing itself more decidedly independent of all objective au- 
thority, and more favourable by far to a mere abstract spiritual- 
ism in religion. The danger to which the Reformed Church 
might be said to have been most liable, in its very nature, from 
the first, came here to be something more than danger; it ap- 
peared as actual ultra-protestantism itself, hostile to the proper 
idea of the Church, and irreverent towards all history at the 
same time. -Nor has the history of this system of thinking since 
furnished any reason to suppose in its case a change of charac- 
ter, in the respect here noticed. On the contrary, it is clear 
that the wrong element which was embodied in it at the begin- 
ning, has been only confirmed and consolidated since, under the 
same character; for to this very influence must be referred, to 
a great extent, more or less directly, the curse of sectarism, as 
it has now become so widely established both in Great Britain 
and in this country. That some leaven of rationalism then 
should enter into its theology, in these circumstances, must 
appear, after what has already been said, a matter of course. 
This may be, notwithstanding the presence of a large amount of 
religious life in connection with the same system. 

Be all this as it may, however, it must at all events be re- 
garded as a presumption against the modern Puritan view of the 
Lord's Supper, that, in departing from the doctrine of the Re- 
formation, it is found to fall in so strikingly with what may be 
styled the apostacy of Rationalism in the same direction. It 
might seem sufficiently startling to be sundered, in such a case, 
from the general faith of Christendom as it has stood from the 
beginning. But still more startling, certainly, is the thought of 
such separation in such company. This much is clear. The 
Reformation included in its original and proper constitution, 



MODERN PURITAN THEORY. 



153 



two different elements or tendencies; and it was felt that it 
could be true to itself, only by acknowledging the authority of 
both, as mutually necessary each for the perfection and proper 
support of the other. In the nature of the case, however, there 
was a powerful liability in the movement to become ultraistic 
and extreme, on that side which seemed to carry the most direct 
protest against the errors of the Church, as it stood before. In 
the course of time, undeniably, this became, as we have already 
seen, its general character. The simply Protestant tendency was 
gradually sundered, in a great measure, from its true Catholic 
complement and counterpoise; and in this abstract character it 
has run out into theoretical and practical rationalism, to a fearful 
extent, in all parts of the Church. The low view of the sacra- 
ments, which we have now under consideration, came in with 
this unfortunate obliquity. It belongs historically and constitu- 
tionally to the bastard form, under which the original life of 
Protestantism has become so widely caricatured in the way of 
heresy and schism. Its inward affinity with the spirit of Ration- 
alism, in one direction, and the spirit of Sect in another, (two 
different phases only of the same modern Antichrist,) is too clear 
to be for one moment called in question. In this character, it 
forms most certainly, like the whole system with which it is 
associated, a departure from the faith, not only of the Lutheran, 
but of the Reformed Church also, as it stood in the sixteenth 
century. It involves in this respect, what would have been 
counted, at that time, not only a perversion, but a very serious 
perversion of the true Protestant doctrine. Now, with this neo- 
logical and sectarian view, we find the modern Puritan theory 
of the Lord's Supper to be in full agreement. Both sink its 
objective virtue wholly out of sight. Both do this, on the prin- 
ciple of making the service spiritual and rational, instead of 
simply ritual. Both, in this way, wrong the claims of Chris- 
tianity as a supernatural life, in favour of its claims as a divine 
doctrine. Both proceed on the same false abstraction, by which 
soul and body, outward and inward, are made to be absolutely 
different, and in some sense really antagonistic, spheres of exist- 
ence. Both show the same utter disregard to the authority of 
all previous history, and affect to construct the whole theory of 
the Church, doctrine, sacraments, and all, in the way of inde- 
pendent private judgment, from the Bible and common sense. 
Both, in all this, involve a like defection, and substantially to the 
same extent, from the creed of the Reformation ; and would 
have been regarded accordingly, not only by Luther, but by Cal- 
vin also, and Beza, and Ursinus, and the fathers of the Reformed 
Church generally, as alike treasonable to the interest, which has 
become identified with their great names. 



154 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



This much, we say, is clear. Let it carry with it such weight 
as may of right belong to it; and no more. The question is not 
to be decided, we all know, by church authority and mere blind 
tradition. The primitive Church may have gone astray from the 
very start. The fathers of the Reformation were not infallible; 
and it must be allowed, that the life of the Reformation, in its 
first form, was the product or birth spiritually of the Catholic 
Church as it stood before, and not oTHffie sects that broke away 
from it in the middle ages. If the Reformers had sprung from 
this line of witnesses on the outside, it is quite likely their Pro- 
testantism would have been something vastly different from the 
gigantic new creation we find it to be in fact. The birth, it may 
be taken for granted, did partake largely of the character of the 
womb, in which it had been carried for so many centuries be- 
fore. These Catholic Reformers may have been wrong, in the 
case now before us, as in many other points. Whole Christen- 
dom may have been wrong, not only in the form, but in the very 
substance of its faith, with regard to the sacraments, for more 
than fifteen hundred years ; till this modern view began to reveal 
itself in the Protestant world, partly in the form of infidelity, and 
partly in the form of a claim to superior evangelical piety. The 
coincidence in this case too may be accidental only, and not 
natural or necessary. With regard to all this, we utter here no 
positive judgment. We wish simply to exhibit facts as they 
stand. But in this character, they have their solemn weight. 
They create a powerful presumption, as I before said, against 
the modern Puritan view, and impose upon all an a priori obli- 
gation of great force, not to acquiesce in it without examina- 
tion. 



CHAPTER III. 



AN ATTEMPT TO PLACE THE DOCTRINE IN ITS PROPER SCIEN- 
TIFIC FORM. 



It has been already admitted that the Calvinistic theory of the 
Eucharistic Presence, as exhibited more or less distinctly in all 
the Reformed symbols of the sixteenth century, is embarrassed 
with some difficulties. These however concern at last not so 
much the fact itself, which may be said to constitute the true aud 
proper substance of the dqctrine, as the defective form in which 
it was attempted to bring it before the understanding. Tt was 
always held indeed that the fact was in its own nature a mystery, 
not to be reduced to any clear explanation in this way : but still 
it became necessary in the controversy with Romanism and Lu- 
theranism on the one side and the Socinanizing tendency on the 
other, not only to define and describe the limits of the fact itself 
at every point, but also to go a certain length at least, in endea- 
vouring to beat down popular objections, and meet the demands 
of the common reason. The success of such an effort hung ne- 
cessarily, to a greater or less extent, on the general theological 
and philosophical culture of the time. As this has been in some 
measure superseded by later intellectual advances, it ought not to 
be counted strange that the doctrine now before us, as well as 
the entire religious system of the same period, should be found 
to exhibit some vulnerable points as it regards form and outward 
representation. This we find to be the case in fact. 



156 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION I. 

PRELIMINARY POSITIONS. 

Calvin's theory seems to labor particularly at three points; all 
connected with a false psychology, as applied either to the person 
of Christ or the persons of his people. 

In the Jirst place he does not make a sufficiently clear dis- 
tinction, between the idea of the organic law which constitutes 
the proper identity of a human body, and the material volume it 
is found to embrace as exhibited to the senses. A true and per- 
fect body must indeed appear in the form of organized matter. 
As a mere law, it can have no proper reality. But still the mat- 
ter, apart from the law, is in no sense the body. Only as it is 
found to be transfused with the active presence of the law at 
every point, and in this way filled with the form of life, can it be 
said to have any such character ; and then it is of course as the 
medium simply, by which what is inward and invisible is ena- 
bled to gain for itself a true outward existence. The principle 
of the body as a system of life, the original salient point of its 
being as a whole, is in no respect material. It is not bound of 
course, for its identity, to any particular portion of matter as 
such. If the matter which enters into its constitution were 
changed every hour, it would still remain the same body; since 
that which passed away in each case would have no more right 
to be considered a part of the man than it had before entering 
the law of life in his person, and the demands of this law would 
always be abundantly satisfied by the matter that might fill it at 
each moment. A real communication then between the body 
of Christ and the bodies of his saints, does not imply necessarily 
the gross imagination of any transition of his flesh as such into 
their persons. This would be indeed of no meaning or value. 
For how could the flesh of Christ as something sundered from 
the law of life in the presence of which only it can have any 
force, and in this form supernaturally inserted into my flesh 
under the like abstract view, bring with it any advantage or 
profit? In such sense as this, we may say, without wresting our 
Saviour's words, "the flesh profiteth nothing." And here pre- 
cisely comes into view, one of the most valid and forcible objec- 
tions to the dogma of the Roman Church, as well as to the 
kindred doctrine of Luther; in both of which so much is made 
to hang on a sort of tactual participation of the matter of Christ's 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



157 



body in the sacrament, rather than in the law simply of his true 
human life. This is urged in fact by Calvin himself, with great 
force, against the false theories in question. This shows of 
course that he was not insensible to the idea of the distinction 
now mentioned ; a point abundantly manifest besides from his 
whole way of representing the subject in general. Still it seems 
to have been a matter of correct feeling with him, rather than of 
clear scientific apprehension. Hence he never brings it forward 
in a distinct way, and never turns it to any such account in the 
service of his theory, as in the nature of the case he might have 
done. Thus too much account is made perhaps of the flesh of 
Christ under a local form, (here confined to the right hand ol 
God in heaven,) as the seat and fountain of the new life which 
is to be conveyed into his people; and the attempt which is then 
made to bring the two parties together, notwithstanding such vast 
separation in space, must be allowed to be somewhat awkward 
and violent. No wonder that men of less dialectic subtlety than 
the great theologian himself, were at a loss to make any thing 
out of such a seeming contradiction in terms. In this case he 
may be said to cut the knot, which his speculation fails to solve. 
Christ's body is altogether in heaven only. How then is its 
vivific virtue to be carried into the believer ? By the miraculous 
energy of the Holy Ghost; which however cannot be said in the 
case so much to bring his life down to us, as it serves rather to 
raise us in the exercise of faith to the presence of the Saviour on 
high. The result however is a real participation always in his 
full and entire humanity. But the representation is confused, 
and brings the mind no proper satisfaction. If for the " vivific 
virtue" of Christ's flesh Calvin had been led to substitute dis- 
tinctly the idea of the organic law of Christ's human life, his theory 
would have assumed at once a much more consistent and intel- 
ligible form. For in this view, it cannot be said that local, ma- 
terial contact is necessary, to sustain a true and strict continuity 
of existence, either in the sphere of nature or in that of grace. 

A second point of difficulty in the case of Calvin's theory is, 
that he fails to insist, with proper freedom and emphasis, on the 
absolute unity of what we denominate person, both in the case 
of Christ himself and in the case of his people. Hence he dwells 
too much on the life-giving virtue of Christ's flesh simply; as if 
this were not necessarily and inseparably knit to his soul, and 
to his divinity too, as a single indivisible life ; so that where the 
latter form of existence is present in a real way, the other must 
be really present too, so far as its inmost nature is concerned, 
to the same extent. When I travel, whether by the eye or in 
thought simply, to the planet Saturn, the act includes my whole 
person ; not the body as such of course, but just as little the soul 

14 



158 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



under the like abstraction ; it is the act of that single and abso- 
lutely one life which I call myself, as the unity of both soul and 
body. And if it were possible in any way that the thought 
which carries me to Saturn, could be made to assume there a 
real concrete existence, holding in organic connection with my 
own life, it must as a hvman existence appear under a human 
form ; which in such a case would be as strictly a continuation 
of my bodily as well as spiritual being, as though it had sprung 
immediately from the local presence of my body itself. So the 
acts of the incarnate Word belong to his person as a whole. 
Not as though his humanity separately considered could be said 
to exercise the functions of his divinity ; for this is a false dis- 
tinction in the case ; and we have just as little reason to say that 
the divinity thus separately considered ever exercises the same 
functions. They are exercised by the theanthropic Person of 
the Mediator, as one and indivisible. If then Christ's life be 
conveyed over to the persons of his people at all, in a real and 
not simply figurative way, it must be so carried over under a 
human form, including both the constituents of humanity, body 
as well as soul ; and the new bodily existence thus produced, 
must be considered, independently of all local connection, a 
continuation in the strictest sense of Christ's life under the same 
form. This point does not appear to have been apprehended, 
with sufficient distinctness, by Calvin and the Reformers gene- 
rally. Hence more or less confusion, and at times some appa- 
rent contradiction, in tracing the derivation of Christ's human 
life into the person of the believer. Bound as he felt himself 
to be to resist everything like the idea of a local presence, he 
found it necessary to resolve the whole process into a special 
supernatural agency of the Holy Ghost, as a sort of foreign me- 
dium introduced to meet the wants of the case. Thus the view 
taken of Christ's human nature becomes altogether too abstract, 
and it is made difficult to keep hold of the idea of a true organic 
connection between his life in this form, and that of his people. 
It is not easy then of course to maintain a clear distinction be- 
tween such a communication of the substance of Christ's life, 
and an influence in the way of mere spiritual power ; to which 
conception Calvin's theory was in fact always made to sink by 
his high-toned Lutheran adversaries ; although he never failed to 
protest against this as grossly perverse and unjust, and has taken 
the greatest pains indeed to save himself at this point from mis- 
construction.* But his theory it must be allowed, carries here 

* It is wonderful, with what pertinacity the view of Calvin has been mis- 
represented at this point. Rigid Lutherans have charged him with a sort of 
theological duplicity, as pretending to differ from Zuingli, while he agreed 
with him in fact ; and modern Calvinists, who have fallen away entirely from 



SCIF.NT1FI C STAT E M E N T . 



159 



a somewhat fantastic character. So on the other hand, the re- 
lation of soul and body in the person of the believer appears too 
abstract al^o, according to his view. He will hear of no trans- 
lation of the material particles of Christ's body into our bodies. 
The vivific virtue of his flesh can be apprehended on our part 
only by faith, and in this form of course by the soul only, through 

the sacramental doctrine of the sixteenth century, would fain bring him down 
too, if it were possible, from the high position which it is acknowledged his 
language sometimes seems to imply. Even the Form of Concord is chargeable 
here with great injustice. It divides the Sacramentarians into two classes; 
the more gross, who openly profess what they believe in their hearts ; and 
the politic, who use something like Lutheran language only to cover the same 
error. These last, representing of course the Calvinistic or proper Reformed 
view, are made to be "omnium nocentissimi sacramentarii because, it is 
said, they pretend themselves to allow a " true presence of the true substan- 
tial and living body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper," and yet 
declare it to be spiritual only, and by faith. Under these high sounding terms, 
they in fact will have nothing to be present but mere bread and wine. (i For 
the term spiritually , signifies with them only Christ's Spirit, or the virtue of 
his absent body, and his merit," &c. So such writers of the present day as 
Guerike, (Symbolik, p. 452-458,) Rudslbach, (Ref. Luth. und Union, p. 188 ff.) 
and Scheibel, (Das Abendmahl . p. 331 If.) spare no pains, in their zeal for 
Lutheranism, to establish the same representation. They insist upon it that 
Calvin only plays with words, in pretending to go beyond Zuingli in his theory 
of Christ's presence in the Supper ; that all comes at last to the conception of 
mere power and effect, as it regards communion with his person, and that the 
sacrament is significative simply of the grace it represents, and nothing more. 
But it is easy to see that such judgment rests altogether, in this case, on the 
fixed prejudice already established, that any communion with the life of 
Christ's body, in order to be real, must hold in some bodily way, and not by 
the soul. Grant this, and Calvin's theory, of course, leaves no room for any 
communion of the sort. But this, Calvin, at least, did not grant. On the 
contrary he held, that to make the communion dependent on any merely 
corporeal act, considered as such only, was in the nature of the case to de- 
prive it of all reality or value. The more spiritual, in his view, the more real. 
All that Luther aimed to secure by his theory of an oral communication, (for 
with him too this must be hyperphysical to be of any account,) Calvin pro- 
posed to reach more satisfactorily by pressing the idea of a spiritual commu- 
nication. He declared himself of one mind with Luther as to the fact ; the 
only difference between them was as to the mode. This was the position taken 
also by the Reformed Church in general. Did not Calvin know what Luther 
meant by his doctrine ? And shall we not believe him when he professes to 
hold a sacramental union with Christ's body and blood, in the same sense, 
simply because he conceives it to take place in a different way ? There is no 
reason to question that he held and taught a real communication, not with the 
power and operation of Christ's body merely, but with its true substantial life 
itself. The elements, as such, were signs, and might be separated from the 
ressacramenti, as Augustine also explicitly teaches ; but the sacramental trans- 
action, as a whole, was no such sign or symbol only. It was held to exhibit 
what is represented ; as much so as the dove, to borrow his own illustration, 
in whose form the Holy Ghost descended upon the Saviour at his baptism. 
" It is perfectly plain,"" says Brctschneider, "that Calvin's theory includes 
what with Luther was the main object, namely, the true, full participation of 
Christ's body and blood, to the strengthening and quickening of the soul; 
and that the question, whether this take place under the bread, or at the same 
time with it, by the mouth or by the soul, does not touch the substance of the 
case. For unless we conceive of the body of Christ as something sensible, 
and thus allow a Capernaitic eating, the oral participation must become at last 



160 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the power of the Holy Ghost. Still it extends to the body also, 
in the end. But all this, it would seem, in a way transcending 
all known analogies, in virtue of an extraordinary divine power 
present for the purpose, rather than as the natural and necessary 
result of the new life lodged in the soul itself. This is not satis- 
factory. Chrisl 5 &JB£rson is one, and the person of the believer 
is one ; ancTto secure a real communication of the whole human 
life of the first over into the personality of the second, it is only 
necessary that the communication should spring from the centre 
of Christ's life and pass over to the centre of ours. This can be 
only by the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost in this case is 
not to be sundered from the Person of Christ. We must say 
rather that this, and no other, is the very form in which Christ's 
life is made present in the Church, for the purposes of the chris- 
tian salvation. 

The third source of embarrassment belonging to the form in 
which Calvin exhibits his theory, is found in this that he makes 
no clear distinction between the individual personal life of Christ, 
and the same life in a generic view. In every sphere of life, the 
individual and the general are found closely united in the same 
subject. Thus, in the vegetable world, the acorn, cast into the 
ground, and transformed subsequently into the oak of a hundred 
years, constitutes in one view only a single existence. But in 
another, it includes the force of a life that is capable of reaching 
far beyond all such individual limits. For the oak may produce 
ten thousand other acorns, and thus repeat its own life in a 
whole forest of trees. Still, in the end, the life of the forest, in 
such a case, is nothing more than an expansion of the life that 
lay involved at first in the original acorn ; and the whole general 
existence thus produced is bound together, inwardly and organi- 
cally, by as true and close a unity as that which holds in any of 
the single existences embraced in it, separately considered. So 
among men, every parent may be regarded as the bearer not 
only of a single individual life, that which constitutes his own 
person, but of a general life also, that reveals itself in his chil- 
dren. Thus especially, in an eminent sense, the first man Adam 
is exhibited to our view always under a twofold character. In 
one respect he is simply a man, to be counted as one amongst 
men since born, his sons. In another he is the man ; in whose 

nothing else than a participation through the soul, and it is not necessary that 
the Lord's spiritual body should be taken in by the mouth, in order to have 
effect upon the soul." See the judgment of Schleiermacher , with regard to 
the same point, as already quoted on page 75. Knapp, Reinhard, &c. of 
course, try to sink the Calvinistic theory somewhat below the level of their 
own, as they pretend to uphold the Lutheran view in opposition to it. But, 
as we have seen, they come short, in fact, both of Calvin and Luther, in the 
case. 



SCIE N T I F 1 C S T A T I 3 MENT* 



161 



person was included the whole human race. Thus he bears the 
name, (in Hebrew,) of the race itself; and it is under this generic 
title particularly that he is presented to our notice in the sacred 
history of the Bible. His individual personality of course was 
limited wholly to himself. But a whole world of like separate per- 
sonalities lay involved in his life, at the same time, as a generic 
principle or root. And all these, in a deep sense, form at last but 
one and the same life. Adam lives in his posterity, as truly as he 
has ever lived in his own person. They participate in his whole 
nature, soul and body, and are truly bone of his bone and flesh 
of his flesh. So in the case before us, the life of Christ is to be 
viewed also under the same twofold aspect. Not indeed as if 
the individual and general here, might be supposed to hold under 
the same form exactly, as in the cases which have been men- 
tioned. The relation of the single oak to its offspring forest, is 
not the same fully with that of the first man to his posterity. 
Nor is this last at all commensurate with the relation of Christ 
to his Church. This will appear hereafter. Still, however, for 
the point now in hand, the cases are parallel. The distinction of 
an individual and a general life in the person of Christ, is just 
as necessary as the same distinction in the person of Adam ; and 
the analogy is at all events sufficient to show, that there may be 
a real communication of Christ's life to his people, without the 
idea of any thing like a local mixture with his person. In one 
view the Saviour is a man, Jesus of Nazareth, partaking of the 
same flesh and blood with other men, though joined at the same 
time in mysterious union with the everlasting Word. But in 
another view he is again the man; in a higher sense than this 
could be said of Adam ; emphatically the Son of Man, in whose 
person stood revealed the true idea of humanity, under its ulti- 
mate and most comprehensive form. Without any loss or change 
of character in the first view, his life is carried over in this last 
view continually into the persons of his people. He lives in him- 
self, and yet lives in them really and truly at the same time. 
This distinction between the individual and the general in the 
life of Christ, Calvin does not turn to account as he might have 
done. That the force of it was, in some measure, present to his 
mind, seems altogether clear. But it is not brought out in a 
distinct, full way; and his system is made to labour under some 
unnecessary difficulty on this account. 

It is easy to see that the three scientific determinations to 
which our attention has now been directed, when taken together 
and clearly affirmed, must serve to modify and improve very 
materially the Calvinistic doctrine of Christ's union with his 
people, so far as the mode of its statement is concerned ; reliev- 
ing it in fact from its most serious difficulties, and placing it 

14* 



162 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE 



under a form with which even the abstract understanding itself 
can have no good right to find fault. For the positions here ap- 
plied to the case are in no sense arbitrary or hypothetical. They 
belong to the actual science of the present time, and have a 
right to be respected in any inquiry which has this question for 
its object. No such inquiry can deserve to be considered sci- 
entific, if it fail to take them into view. At the same time it is 
equally clear, that in all this the true and proper substance of 
the old doctrine is preserved. Here we stand divided from 
Rationalism and modern Puritanism. We agree with them, that 
the doctrine under its old form has difficulties, with which the 
understanding had a right to quarrel. But, to get clear of these, 
they have thought good to cast away the whole doctrine, sub- 
stance and form together. A process of pure negation and de- 
struction, which, in such a case, can never be right. We hold 
fast to the substance, while, for the very sake of doing so, we 
endeavour to place it in a better form. Of this none can have a 
right to complain ; and least of all those who have given up the 
whole doctrine. They are negative only, in the case. We are 
positive. We cling to the old ; in its life, however, rather than 
by slavish adhesion to its letter. So it must be indeed in the case 
of all religious truth, dogmatically considered. It cannot hold 
in the form of dead tradition. But neither can it be disjoined 
from the life of the past. Its true form is that of history ; in 
which the past, though left behind in one view, is always in an- 
other taken up by the present, and borne along with it as the 
central power of its own life. 

When we speak, however, of putting the doctrine in question 
into a form more satisfactory to the understanding, it is not to 
be imagined of course that we consider it to be any the less a 
mystery, on this account, in its own nature. The mystical union 
of Christ with his Church is something, that, in the very nature 
of the case, transcends all analogies drawn from any lower sphere 
of life; which it is vain to expect, therefore, that the finite under- 
standing as such can ever fathom or grasp. Still, however, much 
depends on the statement even of what is incomprehensible, for 
its being brought to stand at least in a right relation to the un- 
derstanding. The understanding may be reconciled, relatively, 
to that which it cannot comprehend absolutely. It may be set 
right in relation to a mystery negatively, where it has no power 
still to grasp it in a positive way, but can only fill back for relief 
at last on the reason, as a deeper and more comprehensive 
power. But it is much that false conceptions be taken out of 
the way, and that no room be given for objections that lie in the 
end, not against the truth itself, but only against the form of its 
representation. It is much also that this last be made to stand 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 163 



in true correspondence with known analogies in other spheres 
of life, and especially with the organic idea of the new creation 
itself; which, with all its supernatural character as a whole, must 
always be regarded as a continuation still of the natural crea- 
tion in its highest form, and as 1 such most perfectly symmetrical 
and self-consistent in all its parts. It is only in such view, that 
we may be allowed to speak of bringing the doctrine before us 
nearer to the understanding, by any improvement that may be 
possible in the mode of its exhibition. 

Taking advantage then of the scientific truths which have 
been already mentioned and which Calvin failed at least to apply 
to the subject in their full force, and keeping in view always the 
authority of God's most holy revelation, (not so much single 
abstract texts as the life and power of the word rather as a 
whole), I will now endeavour to throw the doctrine comprehen- 
sively into the form which the nature of the case seems to me to 
require. The way will then be open for the actual trial of the 
doctrine, by the Scriptures themselves. These form of course the 
last and only conclusive measure of truth in the case. But before 
we make our appeal to them, it is important that we should have 
clearly in view the precise object for which they are to be con- 
sulted. 

The subject may be exhibited, to the best advantage perhaps, 
in the way of successive theses or propositions, accompanied 
with such illustration as each case may seem to require in order 
to be made clear. These will have respect first to the Mystical 
Union, and then to the question of the Eucharist. 



104 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION IT. 

THE MYSTICAL UNION. 

1. The human ivorld in its present natural state, as descended 
from Adam, is sundered from its proper life in God by sin, and 
utterly disabled in this character for rising by itself to any higher 
position. The fall of Adam was the fall of the race. Not sim- 
ply because he represented the race, but because the race was 
itself comprehended in his person. The terrible fact of sin 
revealed itself in him as a world-fact, that was now incorporated 
with the inmost life of humanity itself, and became from this 
point onward an insurmountable law in the progress of its deve- 
lopment. The ruin under which we lie is an organic ruin ; the 
ruin of our nature ; universal and whole, not simply because all 
men are sinners, but as making all men to be sinners. Men do 
not make their nature, their nature makes them. To have part 
in the human nature at all, we must have part in it primarily as a 
fallen nature; a spiritually impotent nature; from whose consti- 
tution the principle of life has departed in its very root. Not by 
accident or bad example only, as the Pelagians vainly dream, 
are we all in the same condemnation. There is a law of sin at 
work in us from our birth. The whole Pelagian view of life is 
shallow in the extreme. It sees in the human race only a vast 
aggregation of particular men, outwardly put together; a huge 
living sand-heap, and nothing more. But the human race is not 
a sand-heap. It is the power of a single life. It is bound to- 
gether, not outwardly, but inwardly. Men have been one before 
they became many; and as many, they are still one. We have 
a perfect right then to say that Adam's sin is imputed to all his 
posterity. Only let us not think of a mere outward transfer in 
the case. Against such imputation the objection commonly made 
to the doctrine has force. It would be to substitute a fiction for 
a fact. No imputation of that sort is taught in the Bible. But 
the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity involves no fiction. 
It is counted to them simply because it is theirs in fact. They 
are born into Adam's nature, and for this reason only, as form- 
ing with him the same general life, they are born also into his 
guilt. 

2. The union in which we stand with our first parent, as thus 
fallen, extends to his entire person, body as well as soul. He 
did not fall in his soul simply, nor in his body simply, but in 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



165 



both at once. The man fell. So the humanity of which he 
was the root fell in him and with him, to the same extent. The 
whole became corrupt. And now as such it includes in all his 
posterity, a real and true perpetuation of his life under both 
forms on to the end of time. They partake of his body as well 
as of his soul. Both are transmitted by ordinary generation, 
the same identical organic life-stream, from one age onward 
always to another. We are bone of his bone, and flesh of his 
flesh, and blood of his blood. And still there is no material 
communication, no local contact. Not a particle of Adam's 
body has come into ours. The identity resolves itself at last 
into an invisible law; and it is not one law for the body, and 
another law for the soul ; but one and the same law involves the 
presence of both, as the power of a common life. Where the 
law works, there Adam's life is reproduced, body and soul to- 
gether. And still the individual Adam is not blended with his 
posterity in any such way, as to lose his own personality or 
swallow up theirs. His identity with his posterity is generic ; 
but none the less real or close on this account. We are all 
familiar with the case, and if we stop to think of it at all can 
hardly feel perhaps that it calls for any explanation. And yet 
of a truth, it is something very wonderful. A mystery in fact, 
that goes quite beyond the region of the understanding. 

3. By the hypostatical union of the two natures in the person 
of Jesus Christ, our humanity as fallen in Adam was exalted 
again to a new and imperishable divine life. That the race might 
be saved, it was necessary that a work should be wrought not 
beyond it, but in it ; and this inward salvation to be effective 
must lay hold of the race itself in its organic, universal character, 
before it could extend to individuals, since in no other form was 
it possible for it to cover fully the breadth and depth of the ruin 
that lay in its way. Such an inward salvation of the race re- 
quired that it should be joined in a living way with the divine 
nature itself, as represented by the everlasting Word or Logos, 
the fountain of all created light and life. The Word accord- 
ingly became flesh, that is assumed humanity into union with 
itself. It was not an act, whose force was intended to stop in the 
person of one man himself to be transplanted soon afterwards 
to heaven. Nor was it intended merely to serve as the neces- 
sary basis of the great work of atonement, the power of which 
might be applied to the world subsequently in the way of out- 
ward imputation. It had this use indeed, but not as its first and 
most comprehensive necessity. The object of the incarnation 
was to couple the human nature in real union with the Logos, 
as a permanent source of life. It resulted from the presence of 
sin only, (itself no part of this nature in its original constitution,) 



166 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



that the union thus formed called the Saviour to suffer. As 
the bearer of a fallen humanity he must descend with it to the 
lowest depths of sorrow and pain, in order that he might triumph 
with it again in the power of his own imperishable life. In all 
this, he acted for himself and yet for the race he represented at 
the same time. For it was no external relation simply, that he 
sustained to this last. He was himself the race. Humanity 
dwelt in his person as the second Adam, under a higher form 
than ever it carried in the first. 

4. The value of Christ's sufferings and death, as well as of 
his entire life, in relation to men, springs toholly from the view of 
the incarnation, now presented. The assumption of humanity on 
the part ofthe Logos involved the necessity of suffering, as the 
only way in which the new life with which it was thus joined 
could triumph over the law of sin and death it was called to sur- 
mount. The passion of the Son of God was the world's spiri- 
tual crisis, in which the principle of health came to its last 
struggle with the principle of disease, and burst forth from the 
very bosom of the grave itself in the form of immortality. This 
was the atonement, Christ's victory over sin and hell. As such 
it forms the only medium of salvation to men. But how? Only 
as the value of it is made over in each case to the subject, who 
is to be saved. This we are told is by imputation. But does 
the act of imputation reckon to us as ours, that which is not 
ours in fact? Does it proceed upon a fiction in the divine mind? 
Just as little as in the case of our relation to the sin of Adam. 
This last is not a foreign evil arbitrarily set over to our account. 
It is immanent to our nature itself Just so here. The atone- 
ment as a foreign work, could not be made to reach us in the 
way of a true salvation. Only as it may be considered immanent 
in our nature itself, can it be imputed to us as ours, and so be- 
come available in us for its own ends. And this is its character 
in truth. It holds in humanity, as a work wrought out by it in 
Christ. When Christ died and rose, humanity died and rose at 
the same time in his person ; not figuratively, but truly; just as 
it had fallen before in the person of Adam. 

5. The Christian Salvation then, as thus comprehended in 
Christ, is a new Ltfe, in the deepest sense of the word. Not a 
doctrine merely for the mind to embrace. Not an event simply 
to be remembered with faith, as the basis of piety in the way of 
example or other outward support ; the sense of some, who have 
much to say of Chistianity as a fact in their own shallow way. 
Not the constitution only of a new order of spiritual relations, 
or a new system of divine appliances, in the case of fallen, help- 
less man. But a new Life introduced into the very centre of 
humanity itself. In this view, though bound most closely with 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



167 



the organic development of the world's history as it stood before, 
it is by no means comprehended in it, or carried by it, as its 
proper product and fruit. Christianity is more than a continu- 
ation simply of Judaism. It claims the character of a creation, 
by which old things in the end must pass away, and all things 
become new. This indicates, however, its relation to the old 
order. That is not to be annihilated by it, but taken up into it as 
a higher life. The incarnation is supernatural; not magical, 
however ; not fantastic or visionary ; not something to be gazed 
at as a transient prodigy in the world's history. It is the super- 
natural linking itself to the onward flow of the world's life, and 
becoming thenceforward itself the ground and principle of the 
entire organism, now poised at last on its true centre. In this 
sense Christianity is indeed a fact ; even as the first creation 
was a Fact ; a Fact for all time ; a world-fact. 

(>. The new Life of which Christ is the Source and Organic 
Principle, is in all respects a true Human Life. It is in one 
sense a divine life. It springs from the Logos. But it is not 
the life of the Logos separately taken. It is the life of the Word 
made flesh, the divinity joined in personal union with our hu- 
manity. It was not in the way of show merely that Christ put 
on our nature; as many of the old Gnostics believed, and as 
the view that multitudes still have of the Christian salvation, 
would seem to imply. He put it on truly and in the fullest 
sense. He was Man more perfectly than this could be said of 
Adam himself, even before he fell; humanity stood revealed in 
his person under its most perfect form. Not a new humanity 
wholly dissevered from that of Adam; but the humanity of Adam 
itself, only raised to a higher character, and filled with new 
meaning and power, by its union with the divine nature. The 
new creation in Christ Jesus appeared originally only in this 
form, and can hold in no other to the end of time. 

7. Christ's life, as now described, rests not in his separate per- 
son, but passes over to his people ; thus constituting the Church, 
which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth cdl in all. This 
is involved in the view already taken of his Person, as the prin- 
ciple of the new creation. The process by which the whole is 
accomplished, is not mechanical but organic. It takes place 
in the way of history, growth, regular living development. 
Christ goes not forth to heal the world by outward power as 
standing beyond himself; he gathers it rather into his own per- 
son, that is, stretches over it the law of his own life, so that it is 
made at last to hold in him and from him altogether, as its root. 
As individuals, we are inserted into him by our regeneration, 
which is thus the true counterpart of that first birth that makes 
us natural men. We are not however set over into this new 



168 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



order of existence, wholly at once. This would be magic. We 
are apprehended by it, in the first place, only as it were at a 
single point. But this point is central. The new life lodges 
itself, as an efflux from Christ, in the inmost core of our per- 
sonality. Here it becomes the principle or seed of our sanctifi- 
cation ; which is simply the gradual transfusion of the same 
exalted spiritual quality or potence through our whole persons. 
The process terminates with the resurrection. All analogies 
borrowed from a lower sphere to illustrate this great mystery, 
are necessarily poor, and always more or less perilous. Perhaps 
the best is furnished in the action of a magnet on iron. The 
man in his natural state centres upon himself, and is thus spi- 
ritually dead. In his regeneration, he is touched with a divine 
attraction, that draws him to Christ, the true centre of life. The 
tendency and motion here come not of himself, grow not out of 
what he was before. They are in obedience simply to the 
magnetic stream that has reached him from without. The old 
nature still continues to work. The iron is not at once made 
free from its gravity. But a new law is producing at every 
point an inward nisus in the opposite direction ; which needs 
only to be filled with new force continually from the magnetic 
centre, to carry all at last its own way. " I, if I be lifted up," 
says Christ, "will draw all men unto me!" 

8. As joined to Christ, then, we are one with him in his life, 
and not simply in the way of a less intimate and real union. The 
new birth involves a substantial change in the centre of our 
being. It is not the understanding or the will simply, that is 
wrought upon in a natural or supernatural way. Not this, or 
that power or function of the man is it, that may be called the 
seat of what is thus introduced into his person. Life is not 
thinking, nor feeling, nor acting; but the organic unity of all 
these, inseparably joined together. In this sense, we say of our 
union with Christ, that it is a new life. It is deeper than all 
thought, feeling, or exercise of will. Not a quality only. Not 
a mere relation. A relation in fact, as that of the iron to the 
magnet; but one that carries into the centre of the subject a 
form of being which was not there before. Christ communicates 
his own life substantially to the soul on which he acts, causing 
it to grow into his very nature. This is the mystical union ; the 
basis of our whole salvation; the only medium by which it is 
possible for us to have an interest in the grace of Christ under 
any other view. 

9. Our relation to Christ is not simply parallel with our rela- 
tion to Adam, hut goes beyond it, as being immeasurably more 
intimate and deep. Adam was the first man : Christ is the 
archetypal man, in whom the true ideal of humanity hn^ 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. ]QC) 

brought intc .view Adam stands related to the race as a simple 
generic head; Christ as the true centre and universal basis of 
humanity itself. Our nature took its start in Adam ; it finds its 
end and last ground only in Christ. It comes not with us to 
he exercise of a free, full personality, till we are consciously 
joined to the person of the divine Logos in our nature In a 
deep sense thus, Christ is the universal Man. His Person is the 
root, in the presence and power of which only all other person- 
a ities can stand, in the case of his people, whether in time or 
eternity. They not only spring from him, as we all do from Adam 
but continue to stand in him, as an all present, everywhere active 
peisona I Life > * In this way, they all have part in his divinity 
itseit; though the hypostatical union, as such, remains limited 
ot course to his own person. The whole Christ lives and works 
in the Church, supernaturally, gloriously, mysteriously, and yet 
really and truly, " always, to the end of the world." Glory be 
to God ! 

10. The mystical union includes necessarily a participation in 
the entire humanity of Christ. Will any one pretend to say, 
that we are joined in real life-unity with the everlasting Logos, 
apart from Christ's manhood, in the way of direct personal mu- 
tual inbeing? This would be to exalt ourselves to the same 
level with the Son of God himself. The mystical union then 
would be the hypostatical union itself, repeated in the person of 
every believer. Such a supposition is monstrous. Those who 
think of it only impose upon themselves. For the conception 

* Personality is constituted by self-consciousness. This includes, in our 
natural state, no reference whatever to an original progenitor. Adam forms 
in no sense the centre of our life, the basis of our spiritual being. But the 
Christian consciousness carries in its very nature, such a reference to the per- 
son of Jesus Christ. It consists in the active sense of this relation, as the 
true and proper life of its subject. The man does not connect with Christ 
the self-consciousness which he has under a different form, in the way of out- 
ward reference merely; but this reference is comprehended in his self-con- 
sciousness itself, so far as he has become spiritually renewed. Christ is felt 
to be the centre of his life ; or rather this feeling may be said to be itself his 
life, the form in which he exists as a self-conscious person. It is with reason, 
therefore, that Schleiermacher speaks of the communication which Christ 
makes of himself to believers, as moulding the person ; since he imparts, in 
fact, a new higher consciousness, that forms the basis of a life that was not 
previously at hand, the true centre of our personality under its most perfect 
form. In this case the person of Christ is the ground and fountain of all pro- 
per Christian personality in the Church. It is only as he is consciously in 
co mmunication with Christ as his life centre, (which can be only through an 
actual self-communication — Wesensmitlheilung — of Christ's life to him for 
this purpose,) that the believer can be regarded as a Christian, or new man 
in Christ Jesus. So Olshausen: "Die Persbnlichkeit des Sohncs selbst, als 
die umfassende, nimmt alle Personlichkeiten der Seinigcn in sich an f, und 
durchdringt sie wieder mit seinem Leben, gleichsam als der lebendige Mittel- 
nuuc* eines Organismus, von dem das Leben ausstromt und zu dem es wieder- 
i£omm. John xiv., 20, 

15 



170 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



of a real union, they substitute in their thoughts always one that 
is moral in fact. The Word became flesh in Christ, for the very 
purpose of reaching us in a real way. The incarnation consti- 
tutes the only medium by which, the only form under which, 
this divine life of the world can ever find its way over into our 
persons. Let us beware here of all Gnostic abstractions. Let 
us not fall practically into the condemnation of Nestorius. But 
allowing the humanity of Christ to be the indispensable medium 
of our participation in his person as divine, will any dream only 
of his human soul as comprehended in the case? Then the 
whole fact is again converted into a phantom. The life of Christ 
was one. To enter us at all in a real way, it must enter us in 
its totality. To divide the humanity of Christ, is to destroy it; 
to take it away, and lay it no one can tell where. What God has 
joined together, we have no right thus to put asunder. Christ's 
humanity is not his soul separately taken ; just as little as it is 
his body separately taken. It is neither soul nor body as such, 
but the everlasting, indissoluble union of both. 

11. As the mystical union embraces the whole Christ, so we too 
are embraced by it not in a partial but whole way. The very 
nature of life is, that it lies at the ground of all that may be 
predicated besides of the subject in which it is found, in the way 
of quality, attribute, or distinction. It is the whole at once of 
the nature in which it resides. A new life then, to become 
truly ours, must extend to us in the totality of our nature. It 
must fill the understanding, and rule the will, enthrone itself in 
the soul and extend itself out over the entire body. Besides, 
the life which is to be conveyed into us in the present case, we 
have just seen to be in all respects a true human life before it 
reaches us It is the life of the incarnate Son of God. But as 
such, how can it be supposed in passing over to us, to lodge 
itself exclusively in our souls, without regard to our bodies? 
Is it not a contradiction, to think of a real union with Christ's 
humanity, which extends at least only to one half of our nature? 
In the person of Christ himself, we hold with the ancient Church 
the presence of a true body as well as of a reasonable soul. 
Shall this same Christ, as formed in his people, be converted into 
an incorporeal, docetic, Gnostic Christ, as having no real pre- 
sence except in the abstract soul? Or may his bodily nature 
continue to hold in this case in the soul simply, separately 
taken ? Incredible ! Either Christ's human life is not formed 
in us at all, or it must be formed in us as a human life ; must be 
corporeal as well as incorporeal ; must put on outward form, and 
project itself in space. And all this is only to say, in other 
words, that it must enter into us, and become united to us, in 
our bodies as truly as in our souls. In this way, the mystical 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



171 



union becomes real. Under any other conception, it ends in a 
phantasm, or falls back helplessly to the merely moral relation 
that is talked of by Pelagians and Rationalists. 

12. The mystery now affirmed is accomplished, not in the way 
of two different forms of action, but by one and the same single 
and undivided process. Much of the difficulty that is felt with 
regard to this whole subject, arises from the inveterate prejudice, 
by which so commonly the idea of human life is split for the 
imagination into two lives, and a veritable dualism thus consti- 
tuted in our nature in place of the absolute unity that belongs 
to*it in fact. The Bible knows nothing of that abstract separa- 
tion of soul and body, which has come to be so widely admitted 
into the religious views of the modern world. Tt comes from 
another quarter altogether; and it is as false to all true philoso- 
phy, as it is unsound in theology and pernicious for the Chris- 
tian life. Soul and body, in their ground, are but one life ; 
identical in their origin ; bound together by mutual interpene- 
tration subsequently at every point; and holding for ever in the 
presence and power of the self-same organic law. We have no 
right to think of the body as the prison of the soul, in the way 
of Plato; nor as its garment merely; nor as its shell or hull. 
We have no right to think of the soul in any way as a form of 
existence of and by itself, into which the soul as another form 
of such existence is thrust in a mechanical way. Both form 
one life. The soul to be complete to develope itself at all as a 
soul, must externalize itself, throw itself out in space; and this 
externalization is the body.* All is one process, the action of 

* To some, possibly, this representation may seem to be contradicted by 
what the Scriptures teach of the separate existence of the soul between death 
and the resurrection ; and it must be admitted, that we are met herewith a 
difficulty which it is not easy, at present, to solve. Let us, however, not 
mistake the true state of the case. The difficulty is not to reconcile Scrip- 
ture with a psychological theory; but to bring it into harmony with itself. 
For it is certain, that the Scriptures teach such an identification of soul and 
body in the proper human personality, as clearly at least as they intimate a 
continued consciousness on the part of the soul between death and the resur- 
rection. The doctrine of immortality in the Bible, is such as to include 
always the idea of the resurrection. It is an avaifuoLS ix tfcov vex^Zv. 
The whole argument in the loth chapter of 1st Corinthians, as well as the 
representation 1 Thess. iv., 13-1S, proceeds on the assumption that the life of 
the body, as well as that of the soul, is indispensable to the perfect state of 
our nature as human. The soul then, during the intermediate state, cannot 
possibly constitute, in the biblical view, a complete man ; and the case re- 
quires besides, that we should conceive of its relation to the body as still in 
force, not absolutely destroyed but only suspended. The whole condition is^ 
interimistic, and by no possibility of conception capable of being thought of 
as complete and final. When the resurrection body appears, it will not be as 
a new frame abruptly created for the occasion, and brought to the soul in the 
way of outward addition and supplement. It will be found to hold in strict 
organic continuity with the body, as it existed before death, as the action of 
the same law of life ; which implies that this law has not been annihilated, 



172 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



one and the same living organic principle, dividing itself only 
that its unity may become thus the more free and intensely com- 
plete. There is no room to dream then of a bodily communi- 
cation with Christ on the part of believers, as something distinct 
from the communication they have with him in their souls. His 
flesh cannot enter our flesh, under an abstract form, dissevered 
from the rest of his life, and in no union with our souls as the 
medium of such translation. This would be the so called Caper- 
naitic communion in full ; not mystical, but magical ; incredible 
and useless at the same time. The process by which Christ is 
formed in his people, is not thus two-fold but single. It lays 
hold of its subject in each case, not in the periphery of his per- 
son, but in its inmost centre, where the whole man, soul and 
body, is still one undivided life. As in the case of the mind it 
is neither the understanding, nor the will, that is apprehended 
by it, so in the case of the person also it is neither the soul nor 
the body, separately considered, that is so apprehended ; it is the 
totality which includes all ; it is the man in the very centre and 
ground of his personality. Christ's life as a whole is borne over 
into the person of the believer as a like whole. The communi- 
cation is' central, and central only; from the last ground of 
Christ's life to the last ground of ours ; by the action of a single, 
invisible, self-identical, spiritual law. The power of Christ's 
life lodged in the soul begins to work there immediately as the 
principle of a new creation. In doing so, it works organically 
according to the law which it includes in its own constitution. 
That is, it works as a human life; and as such becomes a law 
of regeneration in the body as truly as in the soul. 

13. In all this of course then there is no room for the supposi- 
tion of any material, tactual approach of Christ's body to the 
persons of his people. It is not necessary, that his flesh and blood, 
materially considered, should in any way pass over into our life, 
and become locally present in us under any form, to make us 
partakers of his humanity. Even in the sphere of mere nature, 
the continuity of organic existence, as it passes from one indivi- 
dual to another — mounting upwards for instance from the buried 
seed, and revealing itself at last, through leaves and flowers, in 
a thousand new seeds after its own kind — is found to hang in 

but suspended only in the intermediate state. In this character, however, it 
must be regarded as resting in some way, (for where else could it rest,) in the 
separate lite, as it is called, of the soul itself; the slumbering power of the 
resurrection, ready at the proper time, in obedience to Christ's powerful 
word, to clothe itself with its former actual nature, in full identity with the 
form it carried before death, though under a far higher order of existence. 
Only then can the salvation of the soul be considered complete. All at last is 
one life; the subject of which is the totality of the believer's person, compre- 
hending soul and body alike, from the beginning of the process to its end. 



SC1ENT1F1 C STAT E MEN T . 



173 



the end, not on the material medium as such through which the 
process is effected, but on the presence simply of the living force, 
immaterial altogether and impalpable, that imparts both form and 
substance to the whole. The presence of the root in the 
branches of the oak, is not properly speaking either a local or 
material presence. It is the power simply of a common life. 
And why then should it be held impossible, for Christ's life to 
reach over into the persons of his people, whole and entire, even 
without the intervention of any material medium whatever — be- 
longing as it does pre-eminently to the sphere of the Spirit? 
Why should it seem extravagant, to believe that the law of this 
life, apart from all material contact with his person, may be so 
lodged in the soul of the believer by the power of the Holy 
Ghost, as to become there the principle of a new moral creation, 
that shall still hold in unbroken organic continuity with its root, 
and go on to take full possession of its subject, soul and body, 
under the same form ? 

14. Such a relation of Christ to the Church involves no ubi- 
quity or idealistic dissipation of his body, and requires no fusion 
of his proper personality with the persons of his people. We dis- 
tinguish between the simple man and the universal man, here 
joined in the same person. The possibility of such a distinction 
is clear in the case of Adam. His universality is not indeed of 
the same order with that of Christ. But still the case has full 
force, for the point now in hand. Adam was at once an indi- 
vidual and a whole race. All his posterity partake of his life, 
and grow forth from him as their root. And still his individual 
person has not been lost on this account. Why then should the 
life of Christ in the Church, be supposed to conflict with the 
idea of his separate, distinct personality, under a true human 
form? Why must we dream of a fusion of persons in the one 
case, more than in the other? Here is more, it is true, than 
our relation to Adam. We not only spring from Christ, so far 
as our new life is concerned, but stand in him perpetually also 
as our ever living and ever present root. His Person is always 
thus the actual bearer of our persons. And yettHere is no mix- 
ture, or flowing of one into the other, as individually viewed. 
Is not God the last ground of all personality? But does this 
imply any pantheistic dissipation of his nature, into the general 
consciousness of the intelligent universe? Just as little does it 
imply any like dissipation of Christ's personality into the general 
consciousness of the Church, when we affirm that it forms the 
ground, out of which and in the power of which only, the whole 
life of the Church continually subsists.* In this view Christ is 

* It is not unusual to hear it objected to the view of such a comprehension 
of the general Christian life in the life of Christ, as is here maintained, that it 

15* 



174 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



personally present always in the Church. This of course, in 
the power of his divine nature. But his divine nature is at the 
same time human, in the fullest sense ; and wherever his pre- 
sence is revealed in the Church in a real way, it includes his 
person necessarily under the one aspect as well as under the 
other. With all this however, which is something very different 
from the conception of a proper ubiquity in the case of Christ's 
body, we do not relinquish the thought of his separate human 
individuality. We distinguish, between his universal humanity 
in the Church, and his humanity as a particular man, whom the 
heavens have received till the time of the restitution of all things. 
His glorified body, we doubt not, is possessed of qualities, attri- 
butes and powers, that transcend immeasurably all we know or 
can think of a human body here. Still it is a body; a particular 
body ; having organized parts and outward form. As such of 
course, it must be defined and circumscribed by local limits, and 
cannot be supposed to be present in different places at the same 
time. 

15. The mystical union, holding in this form, is more intimate 
and real, than any union which is known in the world besides. 
Even in nature, the most close connection is not that which 
holds in the way of mere local contact or outward conjunction. 
There may be an actual transfusion of one substance into 
another, with very little union in the end. A simply mechanical 
unity, one thing joined to another in space, is the lowest and 
poorest that can be presented to our thoughts. Higher than this 
is the chemical combination ; which however is still compara- 
tively outward. The organic union, as it holds for instance be- 
tween the root and topmost branches of the tree, is far more 
inward and close. Though they do not touch each other at all, 
they are one notwithstanding in. a sense more true, than can be 
affirmed, either of the different parts of a crystal, or of the ele- 

leads to a sort of pantheism, in which no room is left for the idea of a sepa- 
rate individual consciousness on the part of the believer. But this objection, 
if it have any force, must hold not only against such a life union with Christ 
as is here advocated, but against any union with him whatever that may be 
considered real, and not simply moral. Then all the best old English divines, 
as Professor Lewis has well remarked, such as Howe, Baxter, Owen, &c, 
must fall under condemnation as teaching the Bhuddist doctrine of spiritual 
annihilation. (i Such a philosopher," he adds, Cfi as the author of the ' Bles- 
sedness of the Righteous,' would teach us that the soul's consciousness of 
being in Christ, and of having one life with him, might give a higher sense of 
a more glorious and blessed individuality, than could be derived from any 
other state of being. . . . Paul was not afraid of saying, that ' in God we 
live, and move, and are,' or of speaking of the Church as being 6 the fulness 
of him that filleth all in all,' or of declaring that < our life is hid with Christ 
in God.' Neither whilst there remained in him the individual consciousness 
of so blessed a state, was he afraid of the declaration, fco 8s, ovx sti ETw, 
£77 8e sv spoi XPIXTOS, — I live, not I, but Christ liveth in me." 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



175 



ments that are married in the constitution of atmospheric air. 
Of vastly higher character still, is the union of head and mem- 
bers in the same human body. But even this is a poor image 
of the oneness of Christ with his people. There is nothing like 
this in the whole world, under any other form. It is bound by 
no local limitations. It goes beyond all nature, and transcends 
all thought. 

16. The union of Christ with believers is wrought by the power 
of the Holy Ghost. The new birth is from the Spirit. It is 
by the Spirit the divine life is sustained and advanced in us, at 
every point, from its commencement to its close. There is no 
other medium, by which it is possible for us to be in Christ, or 
to have Christ in ourselves. The new creation holds absolutely 
and entirely, in the powerful presence of the Holy Ghost. 
Hence it is said, " He that is joined to the Lord, is one Spirit;' 3 
and the indwelling of Christ and his Spirit in believers is spoken 
of as the same thing. But for this very reason, we have no right 
to dissolve this unity again in our thoughts, by making the pre- 
sence of the Spirit a mere substitute for the presence of Christ 
himself. Where the one is, there the other is truly and really 
at the same time. The Spirit, proceeding from the Father and 
Son and subsisting in everlasting union with both, constitutes 
the form, in which and by which the new creation in Christ 
Jesus upholds itself, and reveals itself, in all its extent. It is 
not Nature, but Spirit. So in the Person of Christ himself, the 
root of this creation. The Spirit was never brought near to 
men before, as now through the incarnate Word. It dwelt in 
him without measure. Humanity itself was filled completely 
with its presence, and appears at last translucent with the glory 
of heaven itself by its means. Forth from the person of Christ, 
thus " quickened in the Spirit," the flood of life pours itself on- 
ward continually in the Church, only of course by the presence 
and power of the Holy Ghost ; for it holds in no other form. 
Not however by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost, as 
abstracted from the presence of Christ himself; as though he 
were the fountain only, and not the very life-stream too, of the 
new creation, or could he supposed to be in it and with it by the 
intervention only of a presence, not involving at the same time 
and to the same extent his own. " The Lord is that Spirit." 
He reveals himself in his people, dwells in them and makes them 
one with himself in a real way, by his Spirit. In this view, the 
new life formed in them is spiritual; not natural or physical, as 
belonging simply to the first creation. But this does not imply 
at all, that it is limited to the soul as distinguished from the 
body. There is no absolute opposition here between the idea of 
body and the idea of Spirit. Here is a spiritual body, as well 



176 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



as a body natural, according to the apostle. The Spirit of 
Christ, in his own person at least, fills the whole man, soul and 
body. All is spiritual, glorious, heavenly. His whole humanity 
has been taken up into the sphere of the Spirit, and appears 
transfigured into the same life. And why then should it not ex- 
tend itself, in the way of strict organic continuity, as a whole 
humanity also, by the active presence of Christ's Spirit, over 
into the persons of his people? A spiritual life no more ex- 
cludes the thought of the body in the one case, than it does in 
the other. 

17. Christ's life is apprehended on the part of his people only 
by faith. The life itself comes to us wholly from Christ him- 
self, by the power of his Spirit. The magnetic stream is poured 
upon us from abroad. If we move at all, it is only in obedience 
to the divine current thus brought to bear upon our souls. To 
live in this at all, however, it is necessary that we should sur- 
render ourselves spontaneously to its power. This is faith ; the 
most comprehensive, fundamental act of which our nature is ca- 
pable. The man swings himself, in the totality of his being, 
quite off from the centre of self, on which hitherto his conscious- 
ness has been poised, over upon Christ, now revealed to his view, 
as another centre altogether. The birth of a new life, in the 
strictest sense, as we have already seen. Faith, of course, is not 
the principle of this life. It is only the medium of its introduc- 
tion into the soul, and the condition of its growth and develop- 
ment when present. But as such it is indispensable. The 
process of our sanctification is spiritual, and not mechanical or 
magical.* 

18. The new life of the believer includes degrees, and will be- 
come complete only in the resurrectioiv. Only in this form could 
it have a true human character. Ail life, in the case of man, 
is actualized, and can be actualized, only in the way of process 
or gradual historical development. So in the case before us, 
there is the seed; and when it springs, "first the blade, then the 
ear ; and after that, the full corn in the ear." The new life 
struggles with the old, like Jacob and Esau in the same womb! 
The Christian carries in himself two forms of existence, a " law 
of sin and death" on the one hand, and "the law of the spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus" on the other; and the power of the last is 
continually opposed and restrained by the power of the first. 
From its very start, however, the life of Christ in the believer is 
a whole life; and in all its subsequent progress it reveals its 
power continually, under the same character. From the first it 
includes in itself potentially all that it is found to become at the 

* " Living faith in Christ," says Schleiermacher, 16 is nothing but the self- 
consciousness of our union with Christ." 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



177 



last. The life of the tree is only the same life, that was compre- 
hended originally in the seed from which it has sprung. So it 
is with all life. All that belongs, then, to the new life of the 
Christian, conceived as complete at the last day, must be allowed 
to be involved in it as principle and process from the beginning. 
In every stage of its progress it is a true human life, answerable 
to the nature of its organic root, and to the nature also of 
the subject in which it is lodged. It is always, as far as 
it prevails, the law of a new nature for the body as well 
as for the soul. The full and final triumph of the process, 
is the resurrection ; which is reached in the case of the in- 
dividual, only in connection with the consummation of ^the 
Church as a whole. The bodies of the saints in glory will be 
only the last result, in organic continuity, of the divine life of 
Christ, implanted in their souls at their regeneration. There is 
nothing abrupt in Christianity. It is a supernatural constitu- 
tion indeed; but as such it is clothed in a natural form, and in- 
volves in itself as regular a law of historical development, as the 
old creation itself. The resurrection body will be simply the 
ultimate outburst of the life, that had been ripening for immor- 
tality under cover of the oldAdamic nature before. The winged 
psyche has its elemental organization in the worm, and does not 
lose it in the tomb-like chrysalis. Let us not be told, that this 
is to suppose two bodies in the person of the believer at one 
time. Does the new life, abstracted from the body, involve the 
supposition of two souls ? The cases are precisely parallel. The 
man is one, soul and body. But a new organic law has become 
lodged in the inmost centre of his personality, and is now gra- 
dually extending its force over the entire constitution of his na- 
ture as a whole. It does not lay hold of one part of his being 
first, and then proceed to another, in the way of outward territo- 
rial conquest ; as though a hand or foot could be renovated be- 
fore the head, or the understanding apart from the will, or the 
soul in no connection with the body. The whole man is made 
the subject of the new life at once. The law of revolution in- 
volved in it extends from the centre to the extreme periphery of 
his person. The old body becomes itself, in a mysterious way, 
the womb of a higher corporeity, the life-law of Christ's own 
glorious body ; which is at last, through the process of death and 
the resurrection, set free from the first form of existence entirely, 
and made to supersede it for ever in the immortality of heaven. 



178 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION III. 

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



19. "A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; 
wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new 
covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers" Thus 
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, echoing the voice of the 
whole Reformed Church, as it had sounded throughout Christen- 
dom for a century before. The signs, as such, make not the 
sacrament. They are only one part of it. The other part 
is found in the invisible grace, that is sacramentally or mys- 
tically joined with the signs. To be complete, that is to be at 
all a true sacrament, the ordinance must comprehend both. In 
other words the invisible grace enters as a necessary constituent 
element into the idea of the sacrament ; and must be of course 
objectively present with it wherever it is administered under a 
true form. Whether it shall become available to the benefit of 
the participant, must depend on the presence of the conditions 
that are needed to give it effect. All turns here at last on the 
exercise of faith. But the objective presence of the grace itself, 
as an essential part of the sacrament, is none the less certain 
and sure on this account. It belongs to the ordinance in its 
own nature; which, in this view, is not a picture or remem- 
brancer simply for the mind, but a true and real exhibition of 
that which it represents. The sign and the thing signified are, 
by Christ's institution, mysteriously bound together, so as to form 
in the sacramental transaction one and the same presence. Not 
as though the last were in any way included in the first, as its 
local or material receptacle. The conjunction is in no sense 
such as to change at all the nature of the sensible sign, in itself 
considered, or to bring it into any physical union with the grace 
it represents. But still the two form one presence. Along with 
the outward sign, is exhibited always at the same time the repre- 
sented grace. The union of the one with the other is mystical, 
and peculiar altogether to the nature of a sacrament; but it is 
not for this reason less real, but only a great deal more real, than 
it could be possibly under any natural and local form. The in- 
visible grace thus made present by sensible signs in the sacra- 
ments, is " Christ and the benefits of the new covenant." Not the 
benefits of the new covenant only ; but Christ himself also, in a 
real way, as the only medium of a real communication with the 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



179 



benefits. Christ first, and then and therefore all his benefits ; as 
inhering only in his person, and carrying with them no reality 
uxid^^ ariy^fferent view. 

20. " The Lord'* Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving 
and receiving bread and icine according to Christ's appointment, 
his death is showed forth, and the worthy receivers arc, not after 
a corporal and carnal ?nanncr, but by fenth, made partakers of 
his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nou- 
rishment and growth in graced Thus again the Westminster 
Shorter Catechism. Here are sensible signs, bread and wine 
solemnly given and received. Here also we have the invisible 
grace, Christ and his benefits. To make the case clearer, it is 
Christ's " body and blood, with all his benefits f the first of 
course as the basis and medium of the last. The visible and 
invisible are different, and yet, in this case, they may not be dis- 
joined. They flow together in the constitution of one and the 
same sacrament. Neither of the two is the sacrament, abstracted 
from the other. The ordinance holds in the sacramental trans- 
action; which includes the presence of both, the one materially, 
for the senses, the other spiritually, for faith. Christ's body is 
not in or under the bread, locally considered. Still, the power 
of his life in this form is actually exhibited at the same time in 
the mystery of the sacrament. The one is as truly and really 
present in the institution, as the other. The elements are 
not simply significant of that which they represent, as serving 
to bring it to mind by the help of previous knowledge. They 
are the pledge of its actual presence and power. They are 
bound to it in mystical, sacramental union, more intimately, we 
may say, than they would be if they were made to include it in 
the way. of actual local comprehension. There is far more then 
than the mere commemoration oLCiwist's death. Worthy re- 
ceivers partake also of his body and blood, with all his benefits, 
through the power of the Holy Ghost, to their spiritual nourish- 
ment and growth in grace. 

21. The sacrament of the LoreVs Supper has reference directly 
and primarily to the atonement wrought out by Christ's death 
on the cross. So in the words of institution, it is his body broken, 
and his blood shed for the remission of sins, that are held up to 
view. It is not simply of Christ but of the " body and blood" 
of Christ, that is of Christ as sacrificed and slain for the sins of 
the world, that worthy receivers are made to partake in the 
holy ordinance. Not as though the sacrament were itself a 
sacrifice, or included in its own nature any expiatory force, in 
the way dreamed of by the Church of Rome. It serves simply 
to ratify and advance the interest, which believers have already, 
by their union with Christ, in the new covenant established 



180 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



through his blood. Only under this form, can the salvation of 
the gospel stand us in stead. We are sinners and as such need 
redemption. Only through the medium of Christ's sufferings 
and death, can we come to have any part in his glory. He must 
be our righteousness, in order that he may be our life. Hence 
our first relation to him as believers, is that which is formed in 
our justification ; that " act of God's free grace, wherein he par- 
doneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, 
only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received 
by faith alone." And so our whole subsequent Christian life, as 
it grows forth from this objective righteousness, may be said to 
involve a constant return to it, and dependence upon it, on to 
the end of our course. We need no new atonement ; but we do 
need to fall back perpetually on the one sacrifice for sin, which 
Christ has already made upon the cross, appropriating the power 
of it more and more to our souls, as the only ground of our sal- 
vation. The Lord's Supper accordingly, concentrating in itself 
as it does, in some sense, the force and meaning of the whole 
Christian life, has regard to this sacrifice always as the great ob- 
ject of its representation. It is the sacrament of Christ's death, 
the communion of his body and blood. 

22. As the medium however by which we are thus made par- 
takers of the new covenant in Chrisfs death, the Holy Supper 
involves a real communication with the person of the Saviour , 
now gloriously exalted in heaven. Our justification, as we have 
seen, rests on the objective merit of Christ, by whose blood alone 
propitiation has been made for the sins of the world. But this 
justification, to become ours in fact, must insert us into Christ's 
life. It reaches us from abroad, the " act of God's free grace ;" 
but as God's act, it is necessarily more than a mere declaration 
or form of thought. It makes us to be in fact, what it accounts 
us to be, in Christ. The ground of our justification is a right- 
eousness that ivas foreign to us before, but is now made to lodge 
itself in the inmost constitution of our being. A real life-union 
with Christ, powerfully wrought in our souls by the Holy Ghost, 
is the only basis, on which there can be any true imputation to 
us of what he has done and suffered on our behalf. And so, in 
the whole subsequent progress of our Christian life, our interest 
in his merits can be renewed and confirmed only in the same 
way. We must have Christ himself formed in- us more and 
more in a real way, in order that "he may be made unto us of 
God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,and redemp- 
tion." The eucharistic communion then, as serving to confirm 
our interest in the one sacrifice accomplished on the cross, must 
include a true participation in the life of him by whom the 
sacrifice was made. We can make no intelligible distinction 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



181 



here, between the crucified body of Christ and his body as now 
glorified in heaven. Both at last are one and the same life. To 
partake of the * broken body" and " shed blood" of the Re- 
deemer, if it mean a real participation in his person at all, must 
be to communicate with him as now exalted at the right hand of 
God. For it is not a dead contract or a dead sacrifice we have 
to do with in this case ; the " new covenant in Christ's blood" can 
hold only in the power of that indissoluble life, by which Jesus, 
once put to death in the flesh, is now quickened forever in the 
Spirit. The virtue of this covenant is not only represented, but 
sealed also and applied, to believers; which means, not merely 
that they have in the sacrament a general pledge that God will be 
faithful to his own promises, but that the grace which it exhibits 
is actually made over to them, at the time, in this very transac- 
tion -itself. The grace however, namely the merit of Christ's 
sufferings and death, has a ( real character only as rooted in a 
living way in Christ's person); and it can become ours by new 
application, accordingly, no farther than Christ himself is made 
over to us at the same time. " To eat the crucified body and 
drink the shed blood of Christ" then, in the language of the 
Heidelberg Catechism, " is not only to embrace with a believing 
heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to ob- 
tain the pardon of sin and life eternal; but also, besides that* 
to become more and more united to his sacred body by the Holy 
Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us ; so that we, though 
Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding flesh of 
his flesh and bone of his bone; and that we live, and are 
governed forever, by one Spirit, as members of the same body 
are by one soul." 

23. The real communication which believers have with Christ 
in the Holy Supper, extends to his whole person. To be real, 
and not simply moral, it must be thus comprehensive. We may 
divide Christ in our thoughts, abstracting his divinity from his 
humanity, or his soul from his body. But no such dualism has 
place in his actual person. If then he is to be received by us at 
all, it must be in a whole way. We partake not of certain rights 
and privileges only, which have been secured for us by the 
breaking of his body and shedding of his blood, but of the veri- 
table substantial life of the blessed Immanuel himself, as the 
fountain and channel by which alone all these benefits can be con- 
veyed into our souls. We partake not of his divinity only, nor 
yet of his Spirit as separate from himself, but also of his true 
and proper humanity. Not of his humanity in a separate form, 
his flesh and blood disjoined from his Spirit; but of the one 
life, which is the union of both, and in virtue of which the 

16 

/ •.■ 



182 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE 



presence of the one must ever involve in the same form, and to 
the same extent, the presence of the other. 

24. Christ communicates himself to us, in the real way noio 
mentioned, under the form of the sacramental mystery as such. 
It is not as the object of thought simply or lively recollection, 
that he is made present in the ordinance. Nor is it by the ac- 
tivity of our faith merely, that he is brought nigh. His presence 
is identified objectively with the sacrament itself; and we re- 
ceive him in the sacrament as the bearer of his very life itself, 
in the form in which it is here presented to our view. This im- 
plies no opus operatum, no mechanical or magical force in the 
use of the elements. All is by the Spirit : and for the commu- 
nicant himself, all hangs upon the condition of faith. But still 
the grace exhibited, the action of the Spirit as here present, be- 
longs to the sacrament in its own nature ; and where the way is 
open for it to take effect at all, by the presence of the proper 
conditions on the part of the communicant, it serves in itself to 
convey the life of Christ into our persons. Such is the sound 
feeling of Dr. Owen, the great Puritan divine, when he tells us : 
" This is the greatest mystery of all the practicals of our Chris- 
tian religion, a way of receiving Christ by eating and drinking, 
something peculiar, that is not in the hearing of the word nor 
in any other part of divine worship whatsoever; a peculiar par- 
ticipation of Christ, a peculiar acting of faith towards Christ." 
The presence of which we speak is not in the bread and wine 
materially considered ; but in the sacramental mystery as a whole. 
This consists of two parts, the one ouTwar3 and visible, the 
other inward and invisible. These however are not simply 
joined together in time, as the sound of a bell, or the show of a 
light, may give warning of something with which it stands in no 
farther connection. They are connected by a true inward bond, 
so as to be different constituents only of one and the same reality. 
This union is not mechanical nor local, but as the old divines 
say, mystical or sacramental ; that is peculiar to this case and 
altogether incomprehensible in its natuie, but only all the more 
real and intimately close, on this very account. 

25. Christ communicates himself to us in the sacrament only in 
a spiritual, central way. Not his body by one process, and 
his Spirit by another ; but his whole life, as a single undivided 
form of existence, by one and the same process. Not by the 
mechanical transplantation of some portion of his glorified body 
into our persons, to become there the germ of immortality in a 
physical view; but by the conveyance of his life in its inmost 
substance, by the power of the Holy Ghost, over into the very 
centre of our souls. The communication is in this view wholly 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



183 



independent of all material contact or conjunction. It holds 
altogether in the sphere of the Spirit. Christ reveals his pre- 
sence in us centrally, as the power of the new spiritual creation 
which is comprehended in his person; and which in this way is 
made to extend itself out organically, over the entire living man ; 
as the life of the vine is re-produced, with all its properties and 
qualities, in every branch to which it extends. 

26. The Lord's Supper is the medium of a real communication 
loith Christ, only in the case of believers. The object of the 
institution is to confirm and advance the new life, where it has 
been already commenced. It has no power to convert such as 
are still in their sins. The grace which it exhibits, can be ap- 
prehended only by faith. Those who come to the Lord's table 
unworthily, as to a common meal, without being in a state to 
discern the Lord's body, eat and drink only judgment to them- 
selves. They receive in no sense Christ's flesh and blood; but 
the bare signs only, by which they are exhibited for the benefit 
of those who come in a right way. Nor is it enough that the 
communicant be a regenerated person; he must be in the exer- 
cise of faith at the time. A gracious state, accompanied with 
gracious affections in the transaction itself, is the indispensable 
condition of a profitable approach to the Lord in the holy sacra- 
ment. And yet, as before said, it is not our faith at all that 
gives the sacrament its force; nor does this consist at all in the 
actings of our faith, or penitence, or love, or any other gracious 
affection, that may be called into exercise at the time. These 
constitute not, and create not, the presence of Christ in the case. 
On the contrary, this presence forms itself the ground from 
which all such affections draw their activity and strength. The 
force of the sacrament is in the sacrament itself. Our faith is 
needed, only as the condition that is required to make room for 
it in our souls. " Thy faith hath made thee whole," said the 
blessed Saviour to the woman, who came behind him in the 
crowd, and touched the hem of his garment. But the healing 
virtue went forth in fact wholly from his own person ; and was 
present there, as an ample remedy for all diseases, independently 
altogether of any application that might be made to him for 
relief. The woman's faith formed the necessary condition only 
on her own part, for her becoming the recipient of the grace 
which was thus at hand. So in the case before us. The virtue 
of Christ's mystical presence is comprehended in the sacrament 
itself, and cannot be said to be put into it in any sense by our 
faith. This serves only to bring us into right relation to the 
life, that is thus placed within our reach. Faith puts not into 

the sacrament, what it has power instrumentally to draw from it 

for our use. 



184 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



27. Christ's mystical 'presence in the Eucharist, as now af- 
firmed, leaves no room for the idea of transubstantiation or 
consubstantiation. According to the first of these errors, the 
bread and wine are changed into the actual substance of the 
Saviour's body and blood. According to the other, the proper 
Lutheran view, the Saviour's true body and blood are so con- 
tained and carried in the elements, that the reception of these 
even on the part of the impenitent and unbelieving, is supposed 
to involve the reception also of the other. Both these views are 
chargeable with the error of supposing an identification of 
Christ's presence in the eucharist with the elements as such. 
According to the Roman theory, this is permanent; the bread 
remains Christ's body, even when carried away afterwards to 
another place. By the Lutheran doctrine, the relation which 
binds them together holds only in the sacramental transaction 
itself; but while it holds, it is such that the elements in some 
way bear the divine life which they represent, so that it is re- 
ceived along with them in an oral, corporeal manner. This 
seems to imply a communication of the bodily life of Christ, not 
physically, of course, but supernaturally, to the body of the be- 
liever, in an immediate and direct way; in which case, the 
sacramental fruition, as something different from the oral recep- 
tion of the elements on the one hand, and the spiritual partici- 
pation of Christ's body and blood on the other, becomes no bet- 
ter than an empty word, to which we can attach no meaning, 
unless it be as we think of mere blind magic. But the presence 
here affirmed, is not such as to identify the body of Christ in 
any way with the sacramental symbols, separately considered; 
It is not bound to the bread and wine, but to the act of eating 
and drinking. In the service of the eucharist, and by its means, 
the believer is made to partake of Christ's body and blood. 
The outward transaction, where faith is at hand, involves this 
inward fruition, and forms the vehicle or channel by which it is 
accomplished. But the outward is not itself the form or mode 
in which the inward here takes place. The participation of 
Christ is wholly spiritual. He communicates himself, by the 
Spirit, to the soul of the believer, in a central way, according to 
the general law of the new creation to which this mystery be- 
longs. No room is left here for the supposition of a mere cor- 
poreal communication, the transference of Christ's life directly 
into the bodies of his people, even though conceived to be in a 
wholly hyperphysical way. This, it is felt, would be only a 
mechanical and outward union in the end ; the action at best of 
the power of the Spirit, on nature as such ; by which a magical 
character must necessarily be imparted to the ordinance, as in 
the Church of Rome. It would imply, besides, a dualism in our 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



185 



proper life, that must overthrow its reality altogether. As the 
life itself is one, so it is to be renovated and sanctified through 
the provisions of the gospel as a single whole, from its ground 
or centre, and not by influences exerted in any way upon its 
organic volume apart from this. The new nature, to be real, 
must spring perpetually from the inmost being of its subject, in 
the form of spirit; and every fresh impulse, accordingly, which 
it is made to receive from its fountain in Christ, in whatever 
way, can be communicated to it only in this general form. So 
the participation of Christ's life in the sacrament, is in no sense 
corporeal, but altogether spiritual, as the necessary condition of 
its being real. It is the soul or spirit of the believer that is im- 
mediately fed with the grace, which is conveyed to it mystically 
in the holy ordinance. But this is in fact a fruition that belongs 
to the entire man ; for the life made over to him under such 
central form, becomes at once, in virtue both of its own human 
character, and of the human character of the believer himself, a 
renovating force that reaches out into his person on all sides, 
and fills with its presence the undivided totality of his nature. 
In whatever sense the communication may be real at all, as dis- 
tinguished from figurative, imputative or simply moral, it must 
be real for the whole man, and not simply for a part of the man. 



16* 



186 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION IV. 

FALSE THEORIES EXPOSED. 

The way is now open for an appeal to the scriptures, which 
must be regarded, of course, as the ultimate standard of truth in 
this whole case. Christianity is not a philosophical theory; nor 
is it conveyed to us in the form of an infallible outward tradition. 
It exists, indeed, for itself, as a permanent supernatural consti- 
tution in the Church; but to be understood in this character, it 
must be measured and interpreted continually by the written word 
of God, which has been graciously committed to the keeping of 
the Church for this very purpose. The mere presumptions, then, 
which have been established in favour of the sacramental doc- 
trine now stated, though of great weight certainly in themselves, 
are not enough to establish the doctrine itself. This can be 
done only by the authority of the Bible, the testimony of God's 
Word sustaining and confirming the testimony of God's Church. 

Before we pass on to this inquiry, however, this might seem 
to be the proper place for noticing the inextricable difficulties 
and contradictions with which the whole subject of the believer's 
union with Christ is necessarily embarrassed, where it is not 
admitted to hold in the form which has now been brought into 
view. It is an easy thing to raise objections to the church doc- 
trine in this case, where the objector is allowed to shift his own 
position at pleasure, without being required to give any properly 
scientific account of his faith, in its ulterior connections and 
relations. This is often done, through want of true theological 
cultivation, where all that would be needed to satisfy, or at least 
to silence, opposition, would be merely some general insight into 
the difficulties that are involved in the stand-point from which 
the objection proceeds. Nothing is more common than for men 
to deceive themselves here with conceptions, or it may be with 
words only, which are found on examination, to carry with them 
no consistency or force whatever. 

The Socinian view, (Rationalism without' disguise,) can never 
of course satisfy the Christian heart or understanding. It makes 
Christianity to be of the same order simply with other systems 
of religion ; only under a more perfect form; as unfolding a 
clearer revelation of divine truth, a better system of ethical rules 
and precepts, and higher motives to virtue, particularly in the 
character and example of Christ himself. At last however it 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



187 



comes to no real union with God, the problem towards whose 
satisfaction all religion, in its very nature, may be said continu- 
ally to struggle. In this respect, it is at best but an exalted style 
of Judaism, or an improvement rather on the philosophical 
schools of Paganism. It throws the man back always upon 
himself, his own separate powers and resources, the capabilities 
of ihejlesh as such, to perfect his nature and make himself meet 
for heaven. But against all this, the whole life of the Christian 
revolts. He knows that such a salvation is not what he needs; 
and he knows, with equal certainty, that it is not what he has 
found in Christ. All this too, he sees to be in full contradiction 
to the representations of the Bible. Christ is greater than Moses 
and all the prophets, and infinitely more also than Paul and the 
whole company of the apostles. He saves not by his doctrine 
and example merely, but by redemption and renovation, reach- 
ing to the inmost-life of his people. If this be not the case, 
Christianity is shorn of all its glory, and the whole gospel turned 
into a dream. 

The Pelagian affects to make more of our salvation by Christ. 
The miracle of the incarnation, and the great facts to which it 
opened the way in his history, are admitted, and allowed to have 
their weight in the scheme of redemption. But their power 
comes after all at last to this, that they serve to unfold truth 
under new aspects and in new relations, and to furnish new mo- 
tives and helps to piety in an outward way. Here is indeed a 
peculiar plan or method of salvation, such as the light of nature 
never could have reached, and involving in fact a system of 
wholly supernatural arrangements for its accomplishment. Still 
however, the whole is something external to the subject of the 
salvation himself. It is an admirably contrived array of facilities, 
provided in God's great mercy for his use, by which he has it in 
his power to escape the pollutions that are in the world through 
sin, and lay hold of glory, honour and immortality. But he is 
left in the end to make use of them, in the same way precisely 
that he might be expected, on the Socinian hypothesis, to turn 
to saving account Christ's precepts and example. We are thrown 
back again, upon the conception of a simply moral salvation, to 
be constructed out of such material in the way of life, as the 
subject of it may be found to possess in his own nature, when 
brought under the action of this divine process of education. 

But the theory may rise higher. To the force which belongs 
to the truth itself in its relation to the human mind, it may join 
the influences of God's Spirit, graciously interposed to clothe 
the truth with effect. Such agency we often hear attributed to 
the Spirit, by those who at the same time reject altogether the 
thought of any immediate change wrought by it in the nature of 



1S8 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the human soul itself. God's grace in this form, they say, is 
brought to bear on the soul, mediately only, by the intervention 
of his word, which he uses instrumentally for the purpose, in- 
fusing into it light and power. But surely those who talk in 
this way, do not stop at all to consider the exact sense of their 
own words. What do they mean, when they speak of the Spirit, 
as infusing light and power into the truth? Can he do so, 
(apart from a direct influence on the soul itself,) in any other 
way than by so ordering the presentation of the truth to the 
mind, that it shall be placed in the most favourable position for 
exerting the power which belongs to it in its own nature? But 
what is this more than such moral suasion, as may be exercised 
over the spirits of men in a merely human way, by appeals ad- 
dressed to the understanding and will ? The order of influence 
at least remains the same, though it may be exhibited under a 
divinely exalted form. In this view, the process of salvation, in 
the midst of all the high sounding terms that may be employed 
to describe it, falls back again to the stand-point already noticed. 
It is a salvation by the power simply of truth, presented in the 
form of doctrine and precept. This truth includes the super- 
natural facts of the gospel, the mission, sufferings, death and 
resurrection of Christ, the outward apparatus in full, if we may 
use the expression, of the Christian redemption ; and along with 
this we have the " moral suasion" of the Holy Ghost, which, ac- 
cording to the unintelligible hypothesis, invests the whole repre- 
sentation with a more than natural evidence and power. All 
turns at last however on the way in which the mind thus ad- 
dressed, may be wrought upon and moved to act, in the use of 
such resources and capabilities as are already comprehended in 
its nature. It matters not whether the facts I contemplate be 
natural or supernatural in their character, whether the truth 
which challenges my regard be brought near to me by man or 
angel, or by God himself; if all hang at last on the relation of 
mere knowledge, and the stimulus thus imparted to my will, I 
am left under the dominion still of my own fallen life, in the 
sphere of the " flesh/' and without any power to rise into the 
sphere of the " Spirit." The mediatorial work as something to 
be gazed upon and admired beyond my own person, can never 
reach the necessities of my case. It must be made over to me 
as my own in some wtfy, or I am left to starve and perish spi- 
ritually in the midst of a merely moral and rationalistic redemp- 
tion. 

Here we are brought then to stand upon higher and more 
orthodox ground. The doctrine of imputation is introduced, to 
meet the demand now mentioned. The work of Christ is no 
longer thought of as a mere display for moral effect; it is some- 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 189 

thing to be appropriated and made available in the person of 
the believing sinner himself, for the purposes of salvation. Mere 
doctrine will not answer. The case calls for an actual personal 
participation in what Christ has done and suffered, to take away 
sin and reconcile man to God. But how is this to be accom- 
plished? By imputation, we are told. As the guilt and fall of 
Adam were reckoned to his posterity, though not theirs in fact, 
so the righteousness of Christ, and the benefits of his mediatorial 
work generally, are, in virtue of the terms of the new covenant, 
made over to all who believe in his name, and accounted to be 
theirs as truly as though all had been wrought out by them, each 
for himself, in truth. Their justification in this view is a mere 
forensic act on the part of God, which is based altogether on 
the work of Christ, and involves as such in their case no change 
of character whatever, but only a change of state. God regards 
them as righteous, though they are not so in fact, and makes 
over to them a full title to all the blessings comprehended in 
Christ's life. At the same time, he regenerates them by his 
Spirit, and puts them thus on a process of sanctification, by 
which in the end they become fully transformed in their own 
persons, into the image of their glorious Saviour. 

But here the question rises, How can that be imputed or reck- 
oned to any man on the part of God, which does not belong to 
him in reality? This is the old difficulty pressed against the 
orthodox doctrine by the Remonstrants or Arminians of Holland, 
(as previously also by the Church of Rome), and constantly re- 
peated by the Pelagianizing school from that time to the present. 
And it must be admitted to carry with it no small force ; or rather 
we may say, that for the form in which this doctrine of imputa- 
tion is too generally held, the objection is fairly insurmountable 
altogether. The judgment of God must ever be according to 
truth. He cannot reckon to any one an attribute or quality, 
which does not belong to him in fact. He cannot declare him 
to be in a relation or state, which is not actually his own, but 
the position merely of another. A simply external imputation 
here, the pleasure and purpose of God to place to the account 
of one what has been done by another, will not answer. Nor 
is the case helped in the least, by the hypothesis of what is called 
a legal federal union between the parties, in the case of whom 
such a transfer is supposed to be made ; so long as the law is 
thought of in the same outward way, as a mere arbitrary arrange- 
ment or constitution for the accomplishment of the end in ques- 
tion. The law in this view would be itself a fiction only, and 
not the expression of a fact. But no such fiction, whether under 
the name of law or without it, can lie at the ground of a judg- 
ment entertained or pronounced by God. Can we conceive of 



190 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



any constitution, for instance, in virtue of which it could have 
been proper or possible for the divine mind, thus to set over to 
the account of mankind the apostacy of the angels which kept 
not their first estate, the two natures being relatively to each 
other what they are at this time? If all depended on the arbi- 
trary pleasure of God, the force of a mere outward arrangement 
constituting one the representative of another without farther 
relation, we cannot see why the transfer of guilt might not take 
place from angels to men, as well as from Adam to his posterity. 
The very fact that our whole reason and feeling revolt against 
the thought in the first case, serves only to show that the pro- 
ceeding must rest upon some deeper ground in the other. So 
as it regards our justification by Christ. A merely outward 
constitution, making him to be one with us in law simply, and 
giving us an interest in his righteousness only as if it were our 
own, while it is not our own in fact, cannot satisfy our sense of 
truth and right. All true Christians, whatever their theory with 
regard to the point may be, feel that their union with Christ is 
something far more than this, and that their property in the 
benefits of his death and resurrection rests upon a basis infinitely 
more sure and solid. 

Do we then discard the doctrine of imputation, as maintained 
by the orthodox theology in opposition to the vain talk of the 
Pelagians ? By no means. We seek only to establish the doc- 
trine; for without it, most assuredly, the whole structure of 
Christianity must give way. It is only when placed on false 
ground, that it becomes untenable in the way now stated. To 
relieve it from objection, it must be made to appear under its 
true and proper biblical form. The Bible knows nothing of a 
simply outward imputation, by which something is reckoned to 
a man that does not belong to him in fact. The fall of Adam 
is adjudged to be the fall of his posterity, because it was so 
actually. The union in law here is a union in life. The fall 
itself forms a certain condition or state, which supposes life as 
its subject. And how then could the one be imputed without 
the presence of the other ? May an attribute or quality be made 
to extend in a real way, beyond the substance to which it is 
attached and in which only it can have any real existence? The 
moral relations of Adam, and his moral character too, are made 
over to us at the same time. Our participation in the actual 
unrighteousness of his life, forms the ground of our participation 
in his guilt and liability to punishment.* And in no other way, 

* All mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation, according to 
the Westminster Catechism, e< sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first 
transgression." This representation, it is well known, has called forth no 
small reproach and sarcasm even, at the expense of the venerable symbol in 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



191 



we affirm, can the idea of imputation be satisfactorily sustained 
in the case of the second Adam. The scriptures make the two 
cases, in this respect, fully parallel. We are justified freely by 
God, on the ground of what Christ has done and suffered in 
our room and stead. His righteousness is imputed to us, set 
over to our account, regarded as our own. But here again the 
relation in law, supposes and shows a corresponding relation in 
life. The forensic declaration by which the sinner is pronounced 
free from guilt, is like that word in the beginning when God 
said, Let there be light, and light was. It not only proclaims 
him righteous for Christ's sake, but sets the righteousness of 
Christ in him as a part of his own life. And in doing this, it 
sets the very life of Christ in him, in the same way. For right- 
eousness, like guilt, is an attribute which supposes a subject in 
which it inheres, and from which it cannot be abstracted without 
ceasing to exist altogether. In the case before us, this subject 
is the mediatorial nature or life of the Saviour himself. What- 
ever there may be of merit, virtue, efficacy, or moral value in 
any way, in the mediatorial work of Christ, it is all lodged in 
the life, by the power of which alone this work has been accom- 
plished, and in the presence of which only it can have either 
reality or stability. The imagination that the merits of Christ's 
life may be sundered from his life itself, and conveyed over to 
his people under this abstract form, on the ground of a merely 
outward legal constitution, is unscriptural and contrary to all 
reason at the same time. The legal union, to be of any force 
for the imputation that is here required, must be a life union. 
In the very act of our justification, by which the righteousness 
of Christ is accounted to be ours, it becomes ours in fact by our 
actual insertion into Christ himself. He is joined to us mysti- 

which it occurs. It has been charged with teaching physical depravity, and 
a transfer of personal character. Unfortunately, moreover, the friends of the 
Catechism, in their attempts to vindicate its doctrine at this point, have not 
always planted themselves on the proper ground for its defence. They have 
themselves rested on the conception of a merely external imputation, which 
could give its subjects at best, in the end, only a quasi interest in the real fact 
it represented. With such an idea of imputation, we may well say that the 
doctrine here proclaimed can never maintain its ground. But we meet the 
objection effectually, by simply descending to the proper depth of the doctrine 
itself. Here is no outward transfer to one, of something properly belonging 
only to another. The language of the Catechism is literally and strictly cor- 
rect. We sinned in Adam, and fell with him, in his first transgression. That 
transgression was ours. The person in which it took place, formed the actual 
complex of the entire human race. The individual existence of every par- 
ticular sinner, is but the historical evolution, in part, of the general life, that 
originally fell in this way. Original sin, accordingly, is carefully described 
by the Catechism, as consisting, not simply " in the guilt of Adam's first sin," 
but in his " want of original righteousness'' also, and in " the corruption of 
his whole nature." So it is in fact. A fallen life in the first place, and on 
the ground of this only, imputed guilt and condemnation. 



192 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



calJy by the power of the Holy Ghost, and becomes in this way 
the principle of a new creation within us, which from the very 
start includes in itself potentially, all that belongs to it already 
in his own person. The life thus set over into the believer, by 
the creative fiat of his justification itself, is the bearer of all the 
new relations in which he is thus brought to stand, as well as 
of all the other benefits he is made to receive on Christ's account. 

Even if we might conceive of an imputation of what is termed 
the passive obedience of the Redeemer to his people, under a 
merely abstract character, we must find every such conception 
inadmissible, at least in the case of his active obedience ; though 
in truth they cannot be disjoined in this way. Allow the possi- 
bility of such an outward transfer of the value of the atonement, 
how are we to have an interest in the new character to which 
humanity has been raised in his person, or the triumphs he has 
secured in its behalf? We need holiness as well as pardon ; and 
the gospel clearly represents Christ to be the fountain of the first, 
no less than he is the author of the second. The obedience by 
which we are constituted righteous in both forms, is found to be 
at last his obedience, and not ours, except as we derive it from 
his person. But who can think of a merely abstract, outward 
transfer of Christ's righteousness actively considered, or as com- 
prehended in the new character to which our nature has been 
positively exalted in his life? Imputation here becomes some- 
thing altogether unintelligible, if it be not allowed to involve in 
its very conception an extension of this life itself, truly and 
really, to those in whose favour it is supposed to hold. The ac- 
tive obedience of Christ, regarded as vicarious, has no meaning 
whatever, except on the basis of such a real life union between 
him and his people ; and we find accordingly, that where the idea 
of this last becomes obscure or confused in the consciousness of 
the Church, the conception of the obedience now mentioned is 
always lost to the same extent.* 

* Both forms of obedience in the end, as Ernesti and others have shown, 
are the same — only different aspects, at most, of the one vicarious work of 
Christ in behalf of his people. The value of Christ's sufferings depended on 
the perfect holiness of his character ; and his character, in the circumstances 
in which he stood, could not be complete except by his sufferings. His right- 
eousness, however, as a whole, has two sides ; one negative and the other 
positive ; the first exhibited in the way of victory over sin and death, the other 
as the free activity of holiness itself in the form of life. Both necessarily go 
together in the transfer of Christ's righteousness to the believer. In the Roman 
Church, the doctrine of such a participation in the active obedience of the 
Saviour, was of course obscured by the view commonly taken of good works. 
With the Reformation, it came into full credit. But for the rationalistic period 
again it had no meaning. Knapp, and theologians of the same stamp, con- 
sider it unscriptural and absurd, to speak of a vicarious obedience of Christ 
in this form. It contradicts, they say, the great principle in religion, that 
every man's character is to be determined by his own works, and not by the 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



193 



Christ then must be regarded as the source, in some way, of 
a new life for his people. So the scriptures teach. So the na- 
ture of the Christian salvation plainly requires. So the orthodox 
faith of the Church has always held. Christ is in the believer 
and the believer is in Christ; not by a moral relationship simply, 
and not by a legal connection only ; but by the bond of a com- 
mon life. Any thing lower than this, is felt to be no better in 
the end than rationalism itself. But it may be said, this common 
life is nothing more than the presence and influence of Christ's 
Spirit in the souls of his people, carrying forward the work of 
grace and transforming them gradually into his own image. 
This ground is often taken in fact by such as claim here the 
highest character for orthodoxy ; and in this way, they persuade 
themselves that it is possible to meet, in the most satisfactory 
manner, all the demands of the Christian salvation as they have 
just been stated, with regard to the point now under considera- 
tion. They profess to accept the doctrine of the mystical union, 
as it is called, without qualification or reserve ; and speak of it 
perhaps, with apparently earnest respect, as one of the most vital 
and precious truths of the gospel. And yet all comes to this 
at last, that the same Spirit which dwells in Christ, and which 
is called the " Spirit of Christ" on this account, dwells also in 
us, and makes us to be of the same mind with him more and 
more ! This they take to be plainly the scriptural view of the 
case; for he that is joined to the Lord, it is said, " is one 
Spirit;" and Christians are represented everywhere as being 
under the influence of Christ's Spirit, and as filled and ruled by 
his presence. 

But here we are in great danger of being put off with mere 
words and phrases, to which no clear sense is attached in the 
minds of those by whom they are used ; so that it becomes ne- 
cessary to insist on some more definite statement of what pre- 
cisely is intended by those who make this representation. If 
their meaning were simply, that the presence of Christ in the 
Church, and his union with his people, hold through the medium 
of the Spirit, there would be no room for objection. This would 
accord with the scriptures, and satisfy at the same time the de- 
mands of the heart and understanding. As Christ is said to 
dwell in his people personally, so he is represented as dwelling 

works of another. This would be true, on the supposition of a mere outward 
imputation in the case; but it only shows the necessity of taking a deeper 
view of the whole subject. Not the works of Christ, as something sundered 
from his life, are made over to his people, but the triumphant power of his 
life itself, revealing itself in them and through them as the bearer of his right- 
eousness in the same active form. Their virtue then is indeed their own, and 
yet the virtue of Christ working its proper fruits in them at the same time. 

17 



194 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



in them only by his Spirit ; which implies plainly that these two 
thoughts are in the end fully identical, and that the one presence 
is not only the pledge of the other, but the very form also in 
which it is made actually to have place. Nor is there any con- 
tradiction in this, but on the contrary vast relief, as it regards 
the apprehension of the mystery itself. For in this way, the 
whole fact of the mystical union is at once lifted above the 
sphere .of mere nature, and exhibited to us as holding in a 
higher order of existence altogether. We know that Christ does 
not dwell in his people physically, in the common sense of this 
term, or according to the constitution of our present natural life 
in any way ; and we must necessarily therefore refer the fact to 
a supernatural constitution, if it is to be retained in our faith at 
all. Such a supernatural constitution is presented to us in the 
new order of life, which is comprehended in the Spirit. This 
life springs from Christ, and reveals itself through the Spirit, as 
its medium, element, or form. As present himself then in the 
Church to the end of time, Christ dwells in his people only in 
this way. His presence is in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. 

But this is not the meaning of those, to whom we now refer. 
Christ, they say, dwells in his people by his Spirit: but in the 
way only of representation, not in the way of strict personal 
inbeing on his own part. They sunder the Spirit of Christ from 
Christ himself, and tell us that the first only, and not the last is 
directly joined with believers in the mystical union. Only as the 
same Spirit dwells likewise in the glorified Saviour, he may be 
regarded as the bond of a living connection also between Christ 
in heaven and the Church on earth ; since both parties are made 
thus, not directly but circuitously at least, to possess the same 
life. But here several difficulties come into view, which are in 
general overlooked by the theory before us altogether. 

In the first place, we are not told explicitly whether the Spirit 
of Christ be supposed, in the case, to be identical with the idea 
of his divine nature, or not. Does the actual presence of the one 
involve the actual presence, to the same extent, of the other. In 
the form in which the subject is often presented, it might seem 
that the whole Christ, divine and human, was held to be in the 
Church, and in particular believers, only by his Spirit, as an en- 
tirely distinct form of existence, constituting the third person of 
the glorious Trinity. Here is a point of some importance, that 
needs to be definitely explained. In any case however, Christ's 
divinity as joined hypostatically with his humanity, cannot be re- 
garded on this hypothesis as present. If the Logos be present 
at all, it is not in its character as incarnate, but only in the cha- 
racter which belonged to it before it became flesh. In any other 
view, the whole Christ must be held to be personally absent, and 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. 



195 



present only by proxy or substitution, in the separate agency of 
the Holy Ghost. How this is to be counted a true and actual 
presence of the Saviour himself, answerable to his own promise, 
and also to the strong terms in which the mystical union is 
spoken of in the New Testament, it is not easy certainly to per- 
ceive. 

But again. What is there peculiar in the grace of the New 
Testament, under this view, as compared with the grace enjoyed 
by the saints under the Old ? Does all turn upon the fuller reve- 
lation, the new facts, the more ample privileges and opportunities, 
that distinguish the dispensation of the gospel ? The scriptures 
plainly teach, that the difference is more than this. Christ, as 
the angel of the covenant, was with his people under the old dis- 
pensation ; and we know, that there were communications of the 
Spirit then also, under a certain form. But it is everywhere 
assumed in the New Testament, that the presence of the one, 
and the communications of the other, have become since the in- 
carnation of a wholly different character. It devolves on the 
theory before us then, to say in what this difference consists. It 
seems certainly to make no account of it whatever. All would 
appear at least to be reduced to a difference in measure and quan- 
tity merely, the order of the grace being supposed to continue 
the same. The incarnation, it is assumed, was a fact of no force 
directly excepTtor the Redeemer himself, separately considered. 
He is now in heaven, under human form, as he was in heaven 
before without this form ; and as he manifested himself previously 
to the patriarchs and prophets, in his divine nature, or by his 
Spirit, so he continues now to manifest himself to his Church 
still, only with more large and free grace, in the same way. The 
Spirit of Christ, by which he is said to dwell in his people, has 
not become different at all in this view by the fact of his incar- 
nation, from what the same Spirit was in relation to men before. 
He is not the medium of a new spiritual creation, established or 
constituted by the miracle of the incarnation itself — the divine 
life flowing forth upon the world, through the everlasting power 
of that fact, under its own peculiar and appropriate form; his 
agency has nothing to do with the incarnation whatever, except 
in an outward mechanical way ; all at last resolves itself into the 
same abstract relation, which the Spirit of God is represented as 
holding to men, before Christ assumed our nature into union 
with himself at all. Is this what the theory means ? If so, let 
the thought be distinctly proclaimed and the difficulties honestly 
faced which it necessarily draws in its train. Let the Church 
know that she is no nearer to God now in fact, that is in the way 
of actual life, than she was under the Old Testament; that the 
indwelling of Christ in believers, is only parallel with the divine 



196 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



presence as enjoyed by the Jewish saints, who all died in faith 
" not having received the promises" (Heb. 11 : 13) ; that the mys- 
tical union in the case of Paul or John was nothing more intimate 
and vital and real, than the relation sustained to God by Abraham, 
or David, or Isaiah. Or if this be not intended nor admitted, 
let the true nature of the difference be explained. 

And then once more; taking this presence of the Spirit for all 
it claims to be in this case, in what form of existence specifically 
must it be conceived to hold ? Under the Old Testament at 
least, it was always an afflatus or influence simply, exerted on the 
soul of the person to whom it was extended. Is this all that we 
are to understand by it, in the Christian Church ? So the theory 
would appear to mean. Christ dwells in us by his Spirit ; and 
the Spirit dwells in us, by his operations, influences, graces. And 
this, we are told, is the mystical union, in virtue of which the life 
of Christ, and not simply, his benefits, are made over to our per- 
sons? But is it the actual life of Christ that is thus conveyed 
into us, by this process? Let the process itself be examined for 
the answer. 

The same Spirit it is said, which works in Christ works also in 
us, fashioning us as we are into the same image. But liow does 
he work? By supernatural influence, it may be said. But is not 
this to fall back again to the theory of a merely moral union with 
Christ, by the power of the truth only; which we have found 
already to be, under its highest form, but Pelagianism in disguise? 
Is Christ in us at last only by the divine suasion of his Spirit? It 
will be hard of course to acquiesce in this. The case calls for 
more. What then is that more? The Spirit, it may be said, 
creates new life in the believer. Very well. We are now fairly 
beyond the sphere of mere truth and moral suasion. But what 
now is this new life ? Something of course that was not in the 
man before. Whence then does it come? Is it the proper life 
of the Spirit himself, the life of God, directly extended to the 
soul? This would be to repeat the mystery of the incarnation, 
in the case of every new believer ; and such a thought of course 
is not for a moment entertained, by any who have come to 
make a clear distinction between the idea of life and that of mere 
influence. W^hence then, we ask again, comes this new life by 
the Spirit? Is it an absolute creation out of nothing; a higher 
order of existence, including no organic, historical connection 
whatever with any law of life already at hand, whether in the man 
himself or beyond him, but originated in every instance as a new 
force altogether, superadded to the regular constitution of the 
world ? Instead of one great miracle then in Christianity, the 
new creation in Christ Jesus, we should have miracles of the same 
order without number or end. Every believer would be a new 



S C 1 ENTI Fl C ST ATEM E N T . 



197 



creation, not in Christ Jesus, but in himself as the absolute start- 
ing point of a life that had never.been known in the world before. 
And then, where would be after all the unity of this life, thus 
originated de novu m every new case, for the Church as a whole? 
And in what sense lastly, might it be denominated at all the life 
of Christy who is the head of the body which it is thus supposed 
to fill? Is a life created from nothing by the Holy Ghost, acting 
in the name of Christ, without any regard whatever to his media- 
torial nature, in any real sense the true and proper life of Christ 
himself as our Mediator! Is this the mystical union ? 

The theory destroys itself. Under every aspect, it is found to 
be contradictory, and unintelligible, and false. And yet this view 
is often exhibited, as furnishing a clear and satisfactory account 
of the union of Christ with believers ; while the supposition of a 
real participation in his proper life is charged with mysticism and 
nonsense ! 

To this however it must come in the end, if the union in ques- 
tion is to be regarded as anything more than moral simply or 
legal. We have seen already that the imputation of Christ's 
merits to his people, requires that his life, the only real bearer of 
these merits, should pass over to them at the same time. And 
now we find, that the mere action of the Spirit upon the soul, 
whether in the way of suasion or creation, is not of itself this 
life in any true sense whatever. What is the conclusion then to 
which we are at last shut up? Plainly this. Christ does dwell 
in us by his Spirit ; but only as his Spirit constitutes the very 
form and power of his own presence as the incarnate and ever- 
lasting Word. The Spirit (which is thus truly the Spirit of 
Christ,) does form us by a new divine creation into his glorious 
image; but the life thus wrought in our souls by his agency, is 
not a production out of nothing, but the very life of Jesus him- 
self, organically continued in this way over into our persons. 
This the case demands. With nothing less than this, can the 
salvation of the gospel, as including the absolute truth of religion, 
in distinction from all Judaizing and Paganizing heresies, ever 
allow itself to be satisfied. And why should it be thought a 
thing incredible, for God to raise the dead to life in this way? 
Those at least who are willing to allow a new creation out of 
nothing in the case of the believer, ought not to find any diffi- 
culty surely in admitting a new creation from the actual sub- 
stance of Christ's life as it exists already, or an extension of this 
life, in other words, into the believer's person. If the Spirit can 
be supposed to create de novo in the case, it is hard to see why 
it should be counted more difficult to conceive of an actual for- 
mation of Christ in us through the same divine medium. The 
first conception is indeed less immediately real; it swims, with 

17* 



198 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



fantastic form, in the distance. Can this be the reason, why it 
should be counted at times more rational than the other? 

But allowing now that Christ does indeed dwell in his people 
by the real presence of his personal life, through the Spirit, and 
not simply by the presence of his Spirit as a surrogate for his 
own, is it necessary to include his whole life in this mystical 
union? To this question there would seem to be but one 
answer. It is with the mediatorial life of Christ that the Chris* 
tian salvation, in the form now contemplated, is concerned. In 
this is comprehended the entire new creation revealed by the 
gospel ; the righteousness of Christ, and all the benefits he has 
procured for his people. But the mediatorial life, by the com- 
munication of which only ail this grace is made to pass over to 
men, is one and undivided. To be in real union with it at all 
then, we must be in union with it as a whole. The presence of 
Christ's divinity is not enough. The mediatorial life includes 
his humanity also, as a necessary part of its constitution. Just 
as little of course are we at liberty to divide his humanity itself, 
'by supposing his soul only to be joined with his people, but not 
his body. Every abstraction of this sort must become involved 
at last, if scientifically pursued, in inextricable embarrassment. 
Body and soul are alike essential to the conception of a true 
human life; and if Christ's life be in us at all in a real way, it 
seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that it must be in us, 
as such a human life, in the one form of existence as truly and 
fully as in the other. Both forms of existence constitute in fact 
but the same living nature ; and the extension of this nature, by 
the power of the Spirit, to the soul of the believer, involves ne- 
cessarily the reproduction of the life as a whole in his person. 



CHAPTER IV. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



SECTION I. 

T HE -INCARNATION. 

" The Word became flesh /" In this simple, but sublime 
enunciation, we have the whole gospel comprehended in a word. 
From the glorious orb of light which is here made to burst upon 
our view, all that would else be dark and chaotic becomes at 
once irradiated with the bright majesty and everlasting harmony 
of truth itself. The incarnation is the key that unlocks the 
sense of all God's revelations. 

It is the key that unlocks the sense of all God's works, and 
brings to light the true meaning of the universe. The world, 
and especially Man, who may be said to gather into his person 
at last all lower forms of existence, himself the summit of the 
vast organic pyramid, is a mystery that is solved and interpreted 
finally only in this fact. Nature and Revelation, the world and 
Christianity, as springing from the same divine Mind, are not two 
different systems joined together in a merely outward way. 
They form a single whole, harmonious with itself in all its parts. 
The sense of the one then is necessarily included and compre- 
hended in the sense of the other. The mystery of the new cre- 
ation, must involve in the end the mystery of the old; and the 
key that serves to unlock the meaning of the first, must serve to 
unlock at the same time the inmost secret of the last. 

The incarnation forms thus the great central fact of the 
world. ~~TT is a magnificent thought on which Heinrich Steffens 
bases his system of Anthropology, that Man is to be viewed, " as 
the end of a boundless Past, the centre of a boundless Present, 
and the beginning of a boundless Future." In the most eminent 
sense may we say this, of Him who is the centre of Humanity 
itself, the Son of Man, as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. 
All nature and all previous history unite, to form one grand, 



200 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



universal prophecy of his presence. All becomes significant 
and complete at last, only in his person. ... • — ' 

Nature, through all lower forms of existence, looks upwards 
continually to the idea of man. The inorganic struggles to- 
wards the organic; the plant towards the animal; and the ani- 
mal nature, improving upon itself from one order of life to 
another, rests not till it is superseded finally by the human. 
Thus all converge towards the same end ; each inferior nature 
foreshadowing that which is to follow, till the vast system be- 
comes symmetrical and full, in a form of perfection which may 
be said to include at last and mirror the true sense of the whole.* 
Without man the entire world would be shorn of its meaning. 
It is by the medium of his personality only, that it becomes 
transparent with thought and is made to utter any intelligible 
sound. The world finds itself, comes to the knowledge of 
itself, in man. All is dark till it has made its way up to the 
sphere of human consciousness. There all becomes light. Man 
is the centre of nature; the key to all its mysteries; the idea, 
which binds its manifold parts into one, and makes them com- 
plete as a single organic whole. 

But what man is to nature in this way, Christ may be said to 
be in some sense to man. Humanity itself is never complete, 
till it reaches his person. It includes in its very constitution a 
struggle towards the form in which it is here exhibited, which 
can never rest till this end is attained. Our nature reaches 
after a true and real union with the nature of God, as the neces- 

* It is hardly necessary to say, that the idea here presented implies no pos- 
sibility whatever of a regular development, on the part of any lower form of 
existence, upwards to the sphere of that which stands above it. This thought, 
which has been exhibited with no small measure of plausibility by the author 
of the little volume entitled Vestiges of Creation, has been justly repudiated 
by the Christian world as contrary to all revelation and religion. It contra- 
dicts, besides, all sound philosophy. The process of growth and historical 
development can never, as such, evolve from any form of existence more 
than was actually involved in it from the beginning. But who can imagine at 
all, that the life of the animal is ever potentially present in the life of the 
plant. To say that the law of existence in the one case, is made to include 
at a certain point more than was comprehended in it before, is only to play 
with words; for the more which appears in that case must be considered in 
all respects a new creation, and in no intelligible sense whatever the product 
or birth of what existed previously. The difference between the animal and 
man, is just as broad as that between the animal and the plant. There is an 
impassable gulph between the two forms of existence, which nothing short of 
a new creation can ever surmount in the case of the lower. But all this has 
nothing to do with the view presented in the text. It is affirmed here, sim- 
ply, that the lower forms of existence look prophetically towards those which 
are above them. They cannot be said to carry these in their womb, in any 
sense ; but they foreshadow their presence, and in this way find their own 
full meaning always in something beyond themselves. The evidence of this 
is so plain, that the fact will not be called in question by any who have even 
the most general acquaintance with the actual constitution of the world. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



201 



sary complement and consummation of its own life. The idea 
which it embodies can never be fully actualized, under any other 
form. The incarnation then is the proper completion of hu- 
manity. Christ is the true ideal Man. Here is reached ulti- 
mately the highest summit of human life, which is at the same 
time of course the crowning" sense of the world, or that in which 
it finds its last and full signification. Here the human consci- 
ousness itself, the medium of order and light for the sphere of 
mere nature, is raised into a higher sphere, from which a new 
life is made to pour itself forth again over the whole world. 
Man finds himself in God, and wakes to the full sense of his 
own being, in being enabled thus to fall back, in a full, free 
way, on the absolute ground of his life. The one only medium 
of such inward, living communication with the divine nature, is 
the mystery of the incarnation, as exhibited in the man Christ 
Jesus. This forms accordingly, without a figure, the inmost and 
last sense of all God's works. The world, from its extreme cir- 
cumference, looks inward to this fact as its true and proper 
centre, and presses towards it continually, from every side, as 
the end of its entire constitution. All is one vast prophecy of 
the coming of Christ. 

History too converges, from the beginning, always towards 
the same point. Not only here and there, have we solitary an- 
nunciations, more or less obscure, of the glorious advent of the 
Messiah. History, like nature, is one vast prophecy of the 
incarnation, from beginning to end. How could it be other- 
wise, if the idea of humanity, as we have seen, required from 
the first such a union with the divine nature, in order that it 
might be complete? What is history, but the process by which 
this idea is carried forward, according to the immanent law of 
its own nature, in the way of a regular development towards its 
appointed end? The introduction of sin — itself a world-fact, 
inseparably incorporated with this process almost from its start, 
and turning all violently into a false direction — only served to 
add a deeper emphasis to the meaning of life, in the view now 
noticed. The necessity of a real union with the divine nature, 
became a necessity at the same time of redemption, the loud 
cry of suffering humanity after an atonement for sin. The 
development of this want, might be said to form thus the great 
burden of history, onward from the fall. All of course, in this 
view, had a reference prophetically to the coming of Christ. 
The whole creation groaned and travailed in pain together, reach- 
ing forward, as it were, with earnest expectation, to the hour 
of this deliverance Not only Judaism, but Paganism too, 
preached beforehand the great event. Both looked, from dif- 
ferent sides, in the same direction and towards the same end. 



202 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Both found their inmost meaning verified at last and explained 
in Christ.* 

Paganism must ever be of course essentially false, under all 
its forms. But all falsehood involves some truth, of which it is 
the caricature, but from which at the same time it draws its life. 
The time has been, when a superficial infidelity sought to bring 
the mysteries of Christianity into discredit, by comparing them 
with the mythological dreams and speculations of the heathen 
world. But that time, it may be trusted, has come to an end. 
Christianity as the absolute religion, must in the nature of the 
case, take up into itself, and exhibit in a perfect form, the frag- 
ments and rudiments of truth contained in all relative religions. 
It is not a doctrine, but a divine fact, into which all previous 
religious tendencies and developments are ultimately gathered 
as their proper end. As in Nature, all lower developments of life, 
however defective or seemingly monstrous, find their true mean- 
ing and value, only as analogies and relative approximations to 
the nature of man — whose perfection and dignity in this way 
they serve, not to disparage, but to authenticate and magnify ; 
so do the ancient religions, both of the Orient and West, con- 
spire to bear testimony in favour of Christ, falling down as it 
were before him, and presenting unto him gifts, u gold and 
frankincense and myrrh." Brahmanism, Buddhism, Parsism, 
the religion of Egypt and the religion of Greece, each in its 
own way, look ever in the same direction, and are heard to 
utter in the end the same voice. All prophesy of Christ ; for 
all proclaim the inmost want of humanity to be a true union 
with God, and their character is determined simply by the form 
in which it is attempted in each case to bring this great life 
problem to its proper resolution. These attempts of course 
destroy themselves, and end in gross contradiction. The Tri- 
murti, or pantheistic triad of India, falls immeasurably short of 
the Christian Trinity. The incarnation of Vischnu goes not 
beyond the character of a transient phantasm. Mithras, Osiris, 
the idea of a wrestling, suffering, redeeming god, Apollo among 
the Greeks, or Hercules, forcing his way to Olympus; all are 
found to be utterly helpless conceptions, as it regards the pur- 
pose they are brought forward to serve. The representation 
remains always inadequate and disproportionate, in the highest 

* Unus Christus Jesus dominus noster veniens per universam dispositionem, 
et omnia in se recapitulans. Irenceus. — Interesting on this point is Dome?*, 
in the Introduction to his " Christologie," or History of the Doctrine of 
Christ's Person. Also, the Introduction to the Doctrine of the Trinity in its 
Historical Development, by G. A. Meier — a most able and excellent work, 
published in 1844; with which maybe compared advantageously the Intro- 
duction to the large, very learned, but less orthodox work of Baur on the 
same subject. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



203 



degree, to the idea it struggles to reach. All ends in an insur- 
mountable dualism. An impassable gulph continues still to 
divide the nature of man from the nature of God. But the sig- 
nificance of all, in the view now considered, becomes thus only 
the more clear and full. Under all its manifestations, Pagan- 
ism may be regarded as the unsuccessful effort of humanity, cast 
upon itself, to solve the problem, whose full solution is revealed 
at last only in the person of Christ. Christianity is the key that 
interprets its mysterious sense, and establishes thus its own 
divine character at the same time. All false religions prepare 
the way prophetically for the presence of the true, and serve to 
authenticate its mission when it has come. 

Judaism, we all know, had respect to the coming of Christ, 
from the beginning. The preparation which in the case of 
the heathen world was negative only, assumed here a positive 
character. The religion of the Old Testament, from the time 
of Adam down to the time of John the Baptist, stood through- 
out on the ground of a supernatural revelation that might be 
said not only to foreshadow the great, fact of the incarnation, 
but directly to open the way also for its manifestation. It 
is not simply the necessity of a union with God on the part 
of man, the cry for redemption and salvation, which it is felt 
can be reached only in this way, that is here made to reveal itself 
in the world's history; a real approximation to men on the part 
of God, in the way of a movement to meet this want, is ex- 
hibited at the same time. Heathenism might be said to run 
out in a helpless attempt violently to deify humanity itself; a 
process that must ever fall back, with new despair, to the point 
from which it started. In the religion of the Old Testament, 
God descends towards man, and holds out to his view in this 
way the promise of a real union of the divine nature with the 
human, as the end of the gracious economy thus introduced. 
To such a real union it is true, the dispensation itself never 
came. By a series of condescensions, that grew always more 
significant and full of encouragement as the dispensation ad- 
vanced towards its proper end, God drew continually more and 
more near to men in an outward way. But to the last it con- 
tinued to be only in an outward way. The wall of partition that 
separated the divine from the human, was never fully broken 
down. The tabernacle of the Most High was among men ; but 
he dwelt notwithstanding beyond them, and out of them, be- 
tween the cherubim and behind the veil. He spake by dreams, 
and visions, and clear words of prophecy, that became always 
more full and distinct; but the revelation to the end, was a reve- 
lation of God to man, and not a revelation of God in man — the 
only form in which it was possible for him to become truly 



204 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



known. Towards this ultimate point however the whole pro- 
cess of condescension constantly tended, as its necessary con- 
summation. The meaning of the entire system lay in its 
reference to Christianity. Not only did it contain particular 
types and particular prophecies of the incarnation ; it was all 
one vast type, and throughout one continuous prophecy, in this 
direction. We may say of the Old Testament as a whole, 
what is said of its last and greatest representative in particular. 
It was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our 
God ! It might be said in some sense to carry the Gospel in its 
womb. All the great truths which were afterwards brought to 
light by Christ, lay more or less undisclosed in its revelations, 
growing and ripening gradually for the full birth towards which 
they struggled, and to which they attained finally in his person. 
Without Christianity, Judaism would have no meaning, no pro- 
per reality. It becomes real, only by losing itself, and finding 
itself at the same time, in the new dispensation. The law, as 
such, made nothing perfect. All served only to harbinger the 
advent of the Messiah, and to proclaim his presence when he 
came. All foreshadowed and foretokened the mystery of the 
incarnation. 

Here then, as before said, we reach the central fact, at once 
ultimate and primal, in the constitution of the world. All na- 
ture and all history flow towards it, as their true and proper 
end, or spring from it as their principle and ground. The in- 
carnation, by which divinity and humanity are joined together, 
and made one, in a real, inward and abiding way, is found to be 
the scope of all God's counsels and dispensations in the world. 
The mystery of the universe is interpreted in the person of Jesus 




BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



205 



SECTION II. 

THE NEW CREATION. 

Christianity stands, as we have seen, in close connection with 
the order of the world as it existed before. Some of the early 
heresies pretended to magnify it, by denying all connection of this 
sort. They would have it, that the whole state of the world as 
it stood previously had been bad, and bad only ; and that it was 
derogatory to the glory of the Gospel, to suppose any affinity 
whatever between it and any older form of life. It must be 
viewed as an entirely new order of existence, suddenly intro- 
duced from heaven, in broad, plump opposition, not only to na- 
ture, but also to the whole previous course of history. Even 
Judaism must be disowned, not simply as a lower dispensation, 
but as a false system unworthy of the true God as revealed by 
Jesus Christ, and at war with the great object of Christ's mis- 
sion into the world. This was in fact to overthrow the incarna- 
tion itself, and to reduce it in the end to a mere phantasm, that 
involved no real union whatever between the divine nature and 
the human. To be real and true, and to solve at all in this way 
the great problem of life, the mystery must connect itself with 
the constitution and course of the world in its previous state. 
This we have seen to be the case in fact. Christianity forms no 
violent rupture, either with nature or history. It fulfils, and in 
doing so interprets, the inmost sense of both. Neither could be 
complete without its presence. Both flow over into it naturally, 
as their own true consummation and end. 

But the Gnostic error just referred to, like all error, included 
also its truth ; in this case a great truth. There was another 
error of the same period ; one to which the Jewish mind espe- 
cially always showed a strong tendency in the early Church. It 
saw in the person of Jesus only a continuation of the old crea- 
tion ; in the high form particularly which it was made to carry 
in the religion of the Old Testament. Thus, on the other side, 
the mystery fell to the ground. The old chasm between the di- 
vine and human was left to yawn as before. Christ sunk into a 
mere man. Against this Ebionitic heresy, the heresy of the 
Gnostic had its right ; though maintained in a false way. Christ 
is not only the end of the old creation, its necessary comple- 
ment and completion ; he is the principle also of a new creation, 
in which the old is required to pass away. 

18 



206 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



" The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us — full of grace 
and truth." This is more a great deal than the simple continua- 
tion of the old order of the world, in the way of regular histori- 
cal development. Here is a fact, which differs from all ordinary 
facts and events, not simply as transcending them in importance, 
but as being of another order altogether. It stands before us, 
not as the result or product strictly speaking of any powers or 
tendencies, that were comprehended in the constitution of the 
world before its manifestation ; but as the introduction of a new 
power entirely, which was to form from that time onward the 
central force in the progress of the world's history. This de- 
serves to be well considered. Let the case be compared with 
some other fact of true world-historical moment ; the rise, for 
instance, of Aristotle and his philosophy. How much hung on 
the mind of that single man! It gave birth to an empire, which 
for extent and duration may be said to have thrown the magni- 
ficence of all the Caesars into the shade. But here was no new 
creation, in the strict sense of the term. Aristotle was in all 
respects the product of previous history. The philosophy that 
revealed itself through his person, was nothing more at last than 
the development of powers that lay involved in the life of the 
world as it stood before, and that waited only for the proper 
time to show themselves in this form. Aristotle added nothing 
to humanity as such ; he was the medium only, by which it 
found itself advanced to the position secured for it in his person. 
But Jesus Christ was no such product of the past. It prophe- 
sied of his coming, and threw open the way for his approach. 
To the mystery of the incarnation itself, however, it had no 
power to rise. Here was a fact, for the evolution of which all 
its capabilities must have remained forever inadequate. Here 
was a fact, which even -the religion of the Old Testament itself 
had no sufficiency to generate, and to which all its theophanies 
and miracles could furnish no proper parallel. For the revela- 
tion of the supernatural under the Old Testament, as already 
remarked, was always in an outward and comparatively unreal 
way. It never came to a true inward union, between the hu- 
man and the divine. The supernatural appeared above nature 
and beyond nature only. It never entered into it, and became 
incorporated with it, as the same life. However it might be 
made to influence the process of history, the development of 
humanity, in the way of instruction, or occasion, or motive, it 
could not be said to bring a new element into the process itself. 
But in the person of Christ, all is different. The supernatural 
is brought not only near to nature, but into its very heart; not 
as a transient wonder, but to remain in union with it forever. 
The everlasting Word, in a way wholly unknown before, descends 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



207 



into the actual process of human history, and becomes within 
it the principle and law of a second creation immeasurably more 
glorious rtian the first. It is by no mere figure of speech, that 
Christ is represented to be the author of a new creation. Nor 
may we say of this creation, that it. is moral simply, consisting 
in a new order of thought and character on the part of men. 
It is no revolution of the old, no historical advance upon the 
past merely, that is here brought into view ; but the introduc- 
tion, literally and strictly, of a new element, a new divine force, 
into the very organism of the world itself. The incarnation, in 
this view, is fully parallel with the work, by which in the begin- 
ning " the worlds were framed by the word of God and in the 
case of which, we are told " things which are seen were not 
made of things which do appear." As the formation of man on 
the sixth day, was necessary to perfect in a higher sphere, the 
organization already called into being in a lower ; of which at 
the same time it could not be said to be, in any sense, the pro- 
duct or result; so in the end, to crown all with a still higher 
perfection, the Word itself, by which the heavens and the earth 
were created before, became permanently joined with humanity 
in the person of Jesus Christ, as the principle of a new earth 
and new heavens — the continuation and necessary complement 
of the previous organization, but in no sense again its historical 
product or birth. 

On the ground of the general fact here affirmed, we ascribe 
to Christianity, as compared with the world in any other view, 
the character of absolute reality and truth. Nature itself is only 
relatively true and real. It finds its actual sense, as we have 
seen, only in the idea of humanity ; and in this idea at last, only 
as actualized in the mystery of the incarnation. It is all a 
shadow and type of the real; but for this very reason, not the 
real itself. All flesh is grass; only the word of the Lord is en- 
during. The fashion of the world is ever passing away, like a 
scenic show ; only Jesus Christ is " the same, yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." There is no other principle of reality or stability 
in God's creation. So all history becomes true at last only in 
Christ. This is exemplified, most instructively, in the religion 
of the Old Testament. It was altogether of God. To it per- 
tained " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and 
the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." 
Of it were the fathers, and from it as concerning the flesh, 
Christ sprang, who is over all, God blessed forever. But still, 
we are expressly taught, that it stood related to the gospel 
throughout, only as a shadow to the substance it represents. 
And this is to be understood, not simply of its types and cere- 
monies as such. It holds in full force of its whole constitution, 



208 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



moral as well as ceremonial. Its truth was not in itself, but in 
a different system altogether to which it pointed. Its reality was 
in no respect absolute, but in all respects relative only* It made 
nothing perfect. It was the picture merely of good things to 
come. The Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the He- 
brews, each in its own way, are full of this thought. We have 
no right to say, that the New Testament is a mere extension or 
enlargement of the Old, under the same form. " The law was 
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" 
(John i. 17). Among all the prophets of the old dispensation, 
there had not risen one greater than John the Baptist; and yet 
we are assured, (Luke vii. 28.) that the " least in the kingdom 
of God is greater than he." All previous revelations were but 
an approach to the truth, as manifested in Christ. " God who at 
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto 
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto 
us by his Son — the brightness of his glory and the express image 
of his person''' (Heb. i. 1-3). All before was relative only; 
here we have God absolutely " manifest in the flesh." Christ is 
the only absolute Prophet, (Deut. xviii. 18, 19. Actsiii. 22, 23.) 
as he is the only absolute Priest (Heb. viii. 4, 5). The relation 
of God to the patriarchs and saints generally of the Old Testa- 
ment, was something that came short wholly of the relation in 
which he now stands to his people, as the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Their spiritual life, their union with 
God, their covenant privileges, all had an unreal, unsubstantial 
character, as compared with the parallel grace of the gospel, and 
constituted at best but an approximation to this grace, rather 
than the actual presence of it in any sense itself.* That which 
forms the full reality of religion, the union of the divine nature 
with the human, the revelation of God in man and not simply to 
him, was wanting to the Old Testament altogether. Of course 
all its doctrines and institutions, all its prerogatives and powers, 
had a shadowy, simply prophetic nature, to the same extent. Its 
sacraments were types only, not counterparts of the sacraments 
of the New Testament. Its salvation was in the form of promise, 
more than present fact. It became real ultimately, only in Christ; 
for before his appearance, we are told the patriarchs of the law 
could not be made perfect (Heb. xi. J 3, 39, 40). The dispen- 
sation of the Spirit has its origin wholly in the person of Christ, 
(Luke i. 35, iii. 22. John iii. 34,) and could not reveal itself in 
the world till he was glorified (John vii. 39). 

The great argument for the truth of Christianity, is the person 
of Jesus himself, as exhibited to us in the faith of the Church. 

* cc Christianity is nothing, if it be not the actualization and substantiation 
of a union, which was before, to a great extent, prophetical and ideal." F. 
D. Maurice. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



209 



The incarnation is the fact of all facts, that may be said itself 
to authenticate all truth in the world besides. The first miracle, 
and the only miracle, we may say, of Christianity, is the new 
creation in which it starts. All else is but the natural product and 
expression of the life, thus introduced into the world. Nothing 
so natural, as the supernatural itself in the Saviour's person. 
Jesus Christ authenticates himself. All foreign, external cre- 
dentials here, can have, in the very nature of the case, only a 
subordinate and secondary value. He is himself the principle 
and ground, the alpha and omega of all truth. 



18* 



210 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



SECTION III. 

THE SECOND ADAM. 

Christ is the principle of a new creation. To be so in truth, 
he must be incorporated, under this character, with the inmost 
life of humanity. For, as we have seen, the world centres in 
man ; and out to its extreme physical circumference, all takes its 
form and complexion from the nature which thus constitutes its 
living, spiritual heart. To descend into the world 3t all then, so 
as to become united to its constitution as a principle of organic 
renovation, it was necessary that the Word should become 
Jlesh. The new creation reveals itself in man. Christ is the 
second Adam. 

His manhood was real. The incarnation was no mere the- 
ophany; no transient wonder ; no illusion exhibited to the senses. 
" Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a 
true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of 
the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her sub- 
stance, and born of her, yet without sin." John makes it the 
mark of Antichrist to call this in question. (1 John iv. 1-3. 2 
John 7.) The nature which he took upon him was truly and 
fully the nature of Adam ; and it was not joined to him in the 
way of an outward accident or appendage merely. The union 
was inward and complete : two natures, but one single undi- 
vided person. 

Christ, however, was not simply a descendant of Adam, and a 
brother thus of the human family, as standing in the same rela- 
tion. To his natural birth must be joined his supernatural con- 
ception. He took our nature upon him; but, in doing so, he 
raised it into a higher sphere, by uniting it with the nature of 
God, and became thus the root of a new life for the race. His 
assumption of humanity was something general, and not merely 
particular.* The Word became flesh ; not a single man only, 
as one among many; but Jlesh, or humanity in its universal con- 
ception. How else could he be the principle of a general life, 

* " The justice of God requires that the same human nature which hath 
sinned, should likewise make satisfaction for sin." Heidelberg Catechism, 
Quest. 16. To be valid at all, the redemption mast go as deep as the curse. 
But this last attaches to our nature as such. Men are sinners, because the 
general life of humanity has become corrupt. Their nature then must be 
restored, as the only ground on which it is possible for them to be saved indi- 
vidually. This is done in Christ. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



211 



the origin of a new order of existence for the human world as 
such ? How else could the value of his mediatorial work be made 
over to us in a real way, by a true imputation, and not a legal 
fiction only? The entire scheme of the Christian salvation re- 
quires and assumes throughout, this view of the incarnation and 
no other. To make it a merely individual case, a fact of no 
wider force than the abstract person of Jesus himself, thus re- 
solving his relationship to his people into their common relation- 
ship to Adam, is to turn all at last into an unreal theophany, and 
thus to overthrow the doctrine altogether.* Christ became man, 
not for himself, but for the race; that he might take our burden 
upon him as his own ; that he might conquer death for us in our 
room and right; that he might lift thus our fallen nature, 
as such, into everlasting union with God. He gathered hu- 
manity into himself as a whole, and was constituted thus its head 
and sum, (wfat^%euwft,s nC^v 7tdvtw,) in a more full and compre- 
hensive sense than this could ever be said of Adam. 

Paul in particular is very clear and very strong, in the repre- 
sentation of this federal or generic character on the part of 
Christ. He makes his relation to the human race parallel in full 
to that of its natural head. Adam is hvkq$ tov ^ixovlo^ (Rom. v. 
14,) and Christ is o laxwtos 'A&xa (I Cor. xv. 45). In Rom. v. 
12-19, they are compared together at length, under this view. 
Adam is exhibited, on the one hand, as the head of our race in 
its fallen character. " By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all 
have sinned." They were constituted sinners by that first act of 
disobedience itself. They sinned in Adam, and fell with him, 
in his first transgression. He stood in the case as their federal 
head, because he was their true organic head. In Adamo, ac- 
cording to the just affirmation of Augustine, omnes tunc peccave- 
runt } quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fucrunt. In 

* " If Christ were only a man, as one along with and among many others, 
it would be indeed incomprehensible, how what he has suffered and done 
could be of any essential weight for mankind in general; he could only exert 
an influence by his doctrine and example. But he is to be viewed in fact, 
apart from his divine nature, as the man, that is, as realizing the absolute idea 
of humanity, and thus carrying it in himself potentially in the way of the 
spirit, as truly as Adam did in a corporeal way. This character of Christ's 
human nature is designated in divinity by the term impersonalitas ; and we find 
even Philo, with an inward feeling of the deep truth, describing the Logos as 
tbv xat' abr^Hav av^guirtov, that is the idea of man, the human ideal. In 
this general* view, the Redeemer bears a twofold representative character; 
first, as he takes the place of sinful men, carrying their grief in his grief, as 
an offering for the sins of the world ; and then again as fulfilling absolute 
righteousness and holiness in himself, so that the believer has not to produce 
them afterwards anew, but receives them in germ along with the Spirit of 
Christ. The first is the obedientia passiva of theology, the last the obedientia 
activa." Olshausen Comm. in Rom. v., 15. 



212 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



all this, the apostle tells us, he was the " figure of him that was 
to come." The gift of life by Christ is id certain respects, in- 
deed, more than commensurate with the death and condemna- 
tion introduced by Adam. But the general nature of the relation 
in the two cases, is the same. Christ too is the federal head and 
representative of humanity as a whole. "As by one man's dis- 
obedience many were made sinners, even so by the righteousness 
of one shall many be made righteous." Not in the way of a 
mere outward imputation, of course, in the last case, more than 
in the first; for this would destroy the parallel; but on the ground 
of a real community of life. As the world fell in Adam organi- 
cally, so it is made to rise in Christ in the same way, as the 
principle of a new spiritual life. Strange, that any who hold the 
Augustinian view of Adam's organic union with his posterity, 
as the only basis that can properly support the doctrine of ori- 
ginal sin, should not feel the necessity of a like organic union 
with Christ, as the indispensable condition of an interest in his 
salvation. Pelagian ism, which sees only an outward connection 
between the first man and his posterity, and recognizes in the 
race but an aggregation of single and separate units, mechani- 
cally brought together, may consistently join hands with Ration- 
alism in resolving the relation of Christ to his Church, also into 
a mere moral connection. But in doing so, it shows itself to be 
just as superficial and false in the one case, as every earnest ob- 
server of life must feel it to be in the other. 

The same parallel, under a somewhat different reference, is 
presented to us again, in 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 45-49. " As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." The 
reference is immediately to natural death and the resurrection 
of the body ; which, however, are only one aspect of the death 
and life contrasted in the other case. " The first man Adam 
was made a living soul ; the last Adam a quickening spirit." By 
our natural birth, we are inserted into the life of the one; our 
spiritual birth secures us a like insertion into the life of the 
other. In both cases, the connection is inward and real. The 
root of righteousness in the one case, corresponds with the root 
of sin in the other. The mystery of Adam, to quote an old 
Rabbinic saying, is the mystery of the Messiah. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



213 



SECTION IV. 

CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 

Christ then was not the founder simply of a religious school ; 
of vastly greater eminence, it might be, than Pythagoras, Plato, or 
Moses, but still a teacher of truth only in the same general sense. 
Christianity is not a Doctrine, to be taught or learned like a 
system of philosophy or a rule of moral conduct. Rationalism is 
always prone to look upon the gospel in this way. As Moses 
made known more of the divine will than the world had under- 
stood before, so Christ is taken to be only a greater prophet in 
the same form. But this is to wrong his character altogether. 
Judaism was indeed only an advance upon previous revelations ; 
no more in fact, we may say, than a vast expansion of the sys- 
tem of truth exhibited through the medium of nature itself. The 
order of revelation, in both cases, was substantially the same. It 
went not beyond the character of a " report," to be received only 
by "the hearing of the ear." The revelation was always relative 
only, never absolute. It came not in any case to a full mani- 
festation of the truth in its own form. But in the Church of the 
New Testament, all is different. A new order of revelation en- 
tirely bursts upon the world, in the person of Jesus Christ. He 
is the absolute truth itself, personally present among men, and 
incorporating itself with their life. He is the substance, where 
all previous prophecy, even in its highest forms, had been only 
as sound or shadow. 

Unitarians affect to make much of Christ's holy Example. He 
redeems us from our sins, they say, partly by his heavenly in- 
structions, and partly by exhibiting himself to us as a pattern of 
piety, in his life and death. This, however, is to rob him still 
of his proper glory. It is to fall back at best into the sphere of 
Judaism. Christianity is more than a model merely of goodness 
and virtue, though allowed to be, in this view, of the most per- 
fect construction, nay, the very mirror of the divine will itself. 

Nor will it change the case materially to make the gospel an 
array of merely outward or moral power, in any other view. 
Many who count themselves orthodox, it is to be feared, come 
short of the truth here altogether. They get not beyond the 
old Ebionitic stand-point; but see in Christianity always an ad- 
vance only on the grace of the Jewish dispensation, under the 
same form, and not a new order of grace entirely. Greater 



214 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



light, enlarged opportunities, more constraining motives, a new 
supply of supernatural aids and provisions; these are taken to 
be the peculiar distinction of the New Covenant, and constitute 
its supposed superiority over the Old. But is not this to resolve 
the Christian salvation as before, into a merely moral institute 
or discipline? If the whole evangelical apparatus — including 
Christ's priestly work, the atonement, his intercession in hea- 
ven, and the gracious influences of his Spirit — be regarded as 
an outward apparatus simply, through the force of which as 
lying beyond himself the sinner is to be formed to righteousness, 
the case is only parallel at best with the theory, that turns the 
work of redemption into a mere doctrine or example. We 
should have at most, in this view, an exaltation only of the reli- 
gion of the Jew. Christ would be to us of the same order with 
Moses; immeasurably greater of course ; but still a prophet only 
in the same sense. 

In opposition to all this, we say of Christianity that it is a 
Life. Not a rule or mode of life simply; not something that 
in its own nature requires to be reduced to practice ; for that is 
the character of all morality. But life in its very nature and 
constitution, and as such the actual substance of truth itself. 
This is its grand distinction. Here it is broadly separated from 
all other forms of religion, that ever have claimed, or ever can 
claim, the attention of the world. " The law came by Moses, 
but grace and truth by Jesus Christ." 

Such is the view presented to us in the beginning of his gos- 
pel, by the evangelist John. The Word, that existed eternally 
with the Father, that created the world, that had illuminated all 
the prophets — drawing always nearer to men as the fulness of 
time approached for this last revelation — now at length, in the 
person of Jesus, became flesh (John i. 1-18). He that 
spake to men mediately before, as from a distance, by the 
prophets, now spake to them immediately, and as it were face 
to face, by his Son (Heb. i. 1, 2). " In him was life," not 
relatively, but absolutely. It dwelt in him as an original and 
independent fountain, (John v. 26). " And the life was the 
light of men." In this character, it had revealed itself indi- 
rectly, in the human consciousness as such, and by means of 
partial and relative representations of truth from without, since 
the beginning of the world. The light shined, however, in dark- 
ness, (the result of sin,) and the darkness comprehended it not. 
All this was preparatory only for the mystery of the incarnation ; 
pointing towards it, and showing its necessity. Here, in the 
end, the self-subsisting life itself enters into the sphere of hu- 
manity. The cry of ages, " O that thou wouldest rend the hea- 
vens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



215 



flow down at thy presence," is met with a full, all-satisfying 
response. The heavens do bow. The everlasting doors fly 
open. The tabernacle of God is with man, as never before. 
Humanity itself has become the Shechinah of glory, in the per- 
son of Immanuel. The Truth, in its absolute substance, stands 
revealed and accessible to all men, in the incarnate Word. " We 
have seen his glory," says the apostle, " the glory as of the Only 
Begotten of the Father." The revelation is real, commensurate 
with the nature of Truth itself/ " No man hath seen God at 
any time; the Only Begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
Father,- he hath declared him" (John i. 18). All former reve- 
lations, as relative only and remote, are here overwhelmed by 
the presence of that " True Light" itself, of which they were but 
broken and scattered rays. " He that hath seen me," says Christ 
himself, "hath seen the Father" (John xiv. 9). What an infi- 
nite contrast this, with the idea of a mere teacher, or prophet in 
the common sense. Only think of such language from the lips 
of Moses! "The life was manifested," says John, "and we 
have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal 
life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" 
(I John i. 1, 2). 

Christ does not exhibit himself accordingly as the medium 
only, by which the truth is brought nigh to men. He claims 
always to be himself, all that the idea of salvation claims. He 
does not simply point men to heaven. He does not merely 
profess to give right instruction. He does not present to them 
only the promise of life, as secure to them from God on certain 
conditions. But he says, " I am the Way, and the Truth, and 
the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 
xiv. 6). Men are brought to God, not by doctrine or example, 
but only by being made to participate in the divine nature itself; 
and this participation is made possible to us only through the 
person of Christ; who is therefore the very substance of our 
salvation, as here affirmed. " God hath given to us eternal life, 
and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son, hath life ; and 
he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life" (1 John v. 11, 12). 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and 
believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall 
not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto 
life !" (John v. 24). Here again we have the idea of a present 
salvation, not in the way of promise and hope only, but in the 
form of actual possession. The believer hath everlasting life. 
Already, (xstaj5s^xcv ix tov ^avdrov h$ try fwjjf. It has been made 
a subject of controversy, whether the whole passage (John v. 
19_30), from which this declaration is taken, refers to the spi- 
ritual or to the bodily resurrection. Clearly, however, it refers 



216 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



to both ; and in this way serves to bring into view the relation 
in which the one stands to the other. The spiritual resurrection 
includes in the end the resurrection of the body. It is all, we 
may say, but a single process, reaching from the point of the 
new birth onward to the full restoration of the whole man at the 
day of judgment. As such, it constitutes the true idea of ever- 
lasting life: which of course, then, must be lodged in the be- 
liever's person here, as an organic principle and incipient de- 
velopment, if it is to unfold itself in the complete glory of 
heaven hereafter. The ground of this life is wholly in Christ. 
He came not to tell men of it, but to reveal it in his own person 
for their use. To believe on him, is to be brought into sub- 
stantial communication with what he is in this form. It is to 
pass from death to life. Of such an one it is said, " He shall 
never see death" (John viii. 51). The new life of which he is 
the subject in his union with Christ, and which now forms his 
central being, cannot perish. It is everlasting and indestructible 
in its very nature. When the man dies, his true life thus rooted 
in Christ, surmounts the catastrophe, and in due time displays 
its triumph in the glories of the resurrection. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life! He that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." (John 11 : 25, 26). 
The resurrection and life here named, are only different aspects 
of the same idea. The first is the form simply in which the last 
reveals itself, in its victorious struggle with death. Both reveal 
themselves together in Christ. It is in him personally, as the 
bearer of our fallen humanity, that death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory, by the power of that divine life of which he was the incar- 
nation. From him, the same life flows over to his people, in the 
way of real communication. He does not merely preach the 
resurrection. It is comprehended in his person. He hath in 
himself abolished death, and thus brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel. (2 Tim. i. 10.) The revelation 
does not consist in this, that he has removed all doubt from the 
doctrine of a future state, and made it certain that men will live 
hereafter. It is not the doctrine, but the fact itself, that is 
brought to light. Immortality, in its true sense, has been intro- 
duced into the world only by Christ. 

Christ leads the way to his people, in the triumph of the re- 
surrection. He is the captain (o fyxnyoi) of the Christian salva- 
tion (Heb. ii. 10. xii. 2.) by whom God conducts many sons to 
glory. He is the Jirst-fruits of the resurrection, (artap**} tw 
xsxwpvflisvav, 1 Cor. xv. 21, 23) ; the Jirst-born among many 
brethren (Rom. viii. 29), to whose image all must be conformed ; 
the beginning, the first-born from the dead (65 iotiv rtgut6*oxo$ 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



217 



i x *Zjv vsxgujv, tW yi vvjtav iv 7tac$iv av-t6$ rtctotsvuv. Col. i. 18). Super- 
ficially considered, this representation might seem to imply, 
according to the old Arian hypothesis, that the relation of Christ 
to his people in the way of salvation is one of mere precedence 
in time only, constituting him at best the great pioneer and pat- 
tern simply, whom others are called to follow through death and 
the resurrection into eternal life. But the representation carries 
evidently a far deeper sense. The captain here, is the author 
also and finisher of the Christian faith. The first, fruits are the 
life and power of the harvest itself, that follows in their train. 
In the first-born of the Church, Christ is at the same time the 
fountain of the entire new order of existence which it compre- 
hends. This is very plain from the passage in Colossians. In 
the first place the apostle styles him six£>v rov $sov nov ao^dnov, 
7t£Gvt otoxos 7idarj$ xtCds w$ ; not to place him in the same order with 
the creation, as the eldest product merely of God's power ; but 
because iv a*rtu> ixtla^vj aavta, the whole creation sprang from 
him as the everlasting Word, in whom all was originally com- 
prehended (John i. 3 ; Heb. i. 2), and by whom still all things 
consist (*6\ rcdvra iv avt<Z avviatr^xs. Col. i. 17).* And parallel ex- 
actly with this relation to the natural creation, only in a far 
higher order of life, the apostle now declares his relation to be 
also to the supernatural constitution revealed in the Church. 
The creation itself becomes complete only in the Church, the 
life of nature in the life of the Spirit; as the principle of the 
first then, it was necessary that the Logos should be the princi- 
ple also of the second, through its relation to which alone, as 
shadow, apparatus and prophecy, the first can be said to have 
any proper significance or reality. He is head over all things 
to the Church (Eph. i. 22). As the Church is the crown and 
complement of the whole world, so he from whom the world 
proceeds reveals his inmost life in the same as his proper body, 
the fulness of him that filleth all in all ; and so he is " the be- 
ginning, the first-born from the dead," not only the point from 
which the new creation starts, but the principle also out of which 
all is derived ; " that in all things he might have the pre-emi- 
nence (u>a yivYitojL iv rtdoiv avto$ rtgu-fEvcov.)" He is the first-born 
of the dead then, in a sense correspondent with that in which he 
is the first-born of the creation ; because the resurrection, that 
is the entire life of the Church, flows forth from his person, and 
has its reality in him only, (iv avid,) to the end. He is not in 

* Non ideo tantum primogenitus, quod tempore praecesserit omnes crea- 
tines, sed quia in hoc a Patre sit genitus, ut per ipsum conderentur ; sitque 
veluti hypostasis, aut fundamentum omnium. Calvin in loc. So he is the 
°f tne second or new creation, it is said afterwards, as the resurrection 
commencing in his person is rerum omnium instauratio. 

19 



218 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the creation however, as he is in the Church ; it forms at best 
but a relative revelation of life; whereas in this last the absolute 
life which he has in himself (h aA>i?ou> fcrir t v, John i. 4. v. 26), is 
made to reach forth into the world in a real way (jJJw^ s^avt^r { , 
1 John i. 2). Thus " it pleased the Father that in him should 
all fulness (rtav to n^cufxa) dwell ; and having made peace 
through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things 
unto himself, 5 ' (Col. i. 19, 20). The divine reconciliation 
(xata%%ay/i) is accomplished for all in his person, (M» tjjs 
cagx6$ avtov bta tov ^avdtov,) by the blood of his cross ; and be- 
comes available only h ofcu>, as the life in which it is compre- 
hended is carried over to others, and made to include them as 
the power of a new creation in the Church. 

Christianity then is a Life, not only as revealed at first in 
Christ, but as continued also in the Church. It flows over from 
Christ to his people, always in this form. They do not simply 
bear his name, and acknowledge his doctrine. They are so 
united with him as to have part in the substance of his life itself. 
Their conversion is a new birth; "not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John i. 12, 
13). "That which is born of the flesh, is flesh." As such, it 
can never rise above its own nature. No cultivation, no out- 
ward aid, no, simply moral appliances, can ever lift it into a 
higher sphere. This requires a new life. " That which is born 
of the Spirit, is spirit all else necessarily comes short of the 
distinction. All else accordingly is something lower than 
Christianity (John iii. 1-8). 

Paul is full of the same general view. Religion is always 
with him, as it holds under the gospel, a divine life ; not simply 
the ordinary moral life regulated by a divine rule, but the pro- 
duct truly and wholly of a new element or principle, carried over 
into the soul from Christ, by the power of the Hoty Ghost. " If 
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (xcui^ xtiais) ; old 
things are passed away; behold all things are become new" (2 
Cor v. 17). The doctrine of free justification is vindicated from 
the objection of being favourable to sin, (Rom. ch. 6-8,) on the 
ground that it involves an organic change in the subject, the 
presence of a new order of existence, which carries the guaranty 
of holiness, so far as it prevails, in its own constitution. " How 
shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Bap- 
tism into Christ is baptism into his death, and so at the same 
time into his resurrection — the translation of the subject out of 
the sphere of the flesh into the sphere of the Spirit (Rom. vi. 
1-7). Under the law, (chap, vii.) righteousness is impossible. 
But, thanks be to God, " there is now no condemnation to them 
which are in Christ Jesus." They are made " free from the law 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



219 



of sin and death" by the " law of the Spirit of life" revealed 
through his person. Thus what was impossible for the law, 
" through the weakness of the flesh," is accomplished by the 
grace that unites us with the life of Jesus." "The righteousness 
of the law is fulfilled in us" — not forensically merely in the way 
of imputation, but as the power of a new life also in our own 
nature — " who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" 
(Rom. viii. 1-4). Christians are " not in the flesh, but in the 
Spirit"— the new life sphere revealed in Christ. The resurrec- 
tion power of Jesus dwells in them, at once the principle and 
pledge of a salvation, that will not rest till in their case too it 
shall have quickened the whole man into life and immortality 
(Rom. viii. 9-11); 

Christ is the substance, and not merely the source, of this 
salvation. So completely indeed is this view interwoven with 
the whole style of thinking in the New Testament, that we often 
fail for this very reason to notice the extent to which it is car- 
ried. But only think of the like representations being employed 
with regard to Moses, the great apostle of the old dispensation. 
Let him be exhibited as " the wisdom of God and the power of 
God" (1 Cor. i. 24) ; " made of God unto us wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. i. 30) ; the sub- 
stance of truth and life, in whom all God's promises are yea and 
amen (2 Cor. i. 20) ; the counterpart of the light that " shined 
out of darkness in the beginning," by which the true knowledge 
of the glory of God is now revealed in the souls of men (2 Cor. 
v. 4, 6) ; the absolute principle of unity for the world, more deep 
and comprehensive than all forms of existence besides (Gal. iii. 
27, 28; v. 15. Eph. ii. 13—22; iv. 14—16. Colos. i. 20; iii. 

10, 11). Let these, and other representations of parallel import, 
which are of such familiar character as applied to Christ, be 
transferred in imagination to Moses, or any other ancient man 
of God, and the full weight of the difference that holds between 
him and all other prophets, must at once make itself felt. 

" 1 am crucified with Christ," says Paul ; " nevertheless I live ; 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live 
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
and gave himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20). The process of the new 
creation in the believer finds its proper analogy, only in the all 
victorious resurrection of the Saviour himself — of which indeed 
it is but the organic continuation in the Church (Eph. i. 18 — 23; 

11. ] — 7). We are God's workmanship, " created in Christ Jesus 
unto good works" (Eph. ii. 10). All Christianity is compre- 
hended in a living apprehension of Christ, in " the power of his 
resurrection and fellowship of his sufferings," in comparison with 
which every moral advantage is to be held of no account (Philip. 



220 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



iii. 7 — 11). " Ye are dead," the apostle says, " and your life is 
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall 
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col. iii. 
3—4.) 

The whole morality of the gospel is made to root itself in the 
presence and power of the new life, thus derived from Christ. 
This forms its grand characteristic distinction, as compared 
with the so called virtue of the common world. All duties are 
enforced, on the ground of what the christian has become by 
his heavenly birth, as the subject of the christian salvation. All 
relations hold in Christ Jesus. The motives to every virtue are 
drawn from the grace of the gospel itself, as already constituting 
the actual state of those on whom they are urged. The virtues 
are all fruits of the Spirit ; which in this case serves only to 
express that higher order of life, (in contrast with the flesh,) into 
which believers are raised by their union with Christ, All mo- 
rality is comprehended in the rule, " Walk in the Spirit, and ye 
shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. v. 16). It is as the 
dear children of God, already quickened into life and sealed 
with the Holy Spirit of promise, that believers are urged to put 
off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 
and to put on continually more and more the new man, which 
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. i. 
1 3, 14 ; ii. 1—6 ; iv. 1, 17—32 ; v. 1—33 ; vi. 1—9. Col. chap, 
iii., iv. 1 Thess. ii. 12; iv. 1—12; v. 4—23. Tit. ii. 9—14. 
1 Pet. i. 13—23; ii. 1—3, 9—12). " Ye were sometimes dark- 
ness, but now are ye light in the Lord ; walk as children of 
light" (Eph. v. 8). "Put on as the elect of God, holy and be- 
loved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meek- 
ness, long-suffering" (Col. iii. 12). " If ye be risen with Christ, 
seek those things which are above" (Col. iii. 1). " Every man 
that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure" 
(1 John iii. 3). Such is the tenor throughout of the Christian 
morality. Its superiority to other ethical systems does not con- 
sist, in its being simply a more, full and accurate statement of 
the duties God requires of man, than can be found elsewhere ; 
but in this rather, that it reveals the true ground of all moral 
relations in Christ, and refers every duty in this way to a prin- 
ciple, which it could not have in any other form, and which 
infuses into it accordingly a new character altogether. The 
whole structure of life, ethically viewed, becomes a new creation 
in Christ Jesus. 



. BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



221 



SECTION V. 

THE MYSTICAL UNION. 

Christ is the principle of the whole Christian salvation. From 
him it flows over, as the power of a divine life, into the persons 
of his people. This implies of course the most close and inti- 
mate connection. The union however which exists in this case, 
is more than that of simple derivation. Here the parallel of the 
first Adam fails to represent fully the mystery of the second. 
The order of existence in the one case transcends immeasurably 
the order of existence in the other. The first man was made 
8*§ ^vxn v £w(?ou> (1 Cor. xv. 45. Gen. ii. 7). His life was relative 
only, and as such creaturely, comprehended in some sense in 
the constitution of mere nature. Adam lived ; but he could not 
be said to " have life in himself," as this is said of Christ (John 
v. 26). The second man in this view was made st$ Ttvsvpa £u>o7tocvv, 
" a quickening Spirit." To the common human nature is 
superadded, in his case, a higher divine life; which with its all 
vivifying power quickens this nature into its own order of exist- 
ence, (xata Svva/xiv axata&v'tov, Heb. vii. 16), first in himself 
and then in his people. " Longe est majus," says Calvin in loco, 
" esse vitam aut vitae causam, quam vivere." Christ has life in 
himself absolutely; and it is under this substantial form, it is 
made to reach over from him to the Church. As such, how- 
ever, of course, it can never be separated from his person ; like 
the life of Adam, carried forward by natural generation in his 
posterity. The stream here may never pass away from the spi- 
ritual Rock, out of which it gushes in the beginning (1 Cor. x. 
4). The new life of the believer is absolute too; as real, in dis- 
tinction from all mere creaturely existence, as the life of Christ 
itself; but on this very account, it 'cannot be separated for a 
moment from its original ground. " Because I live"— and only 
for this reason — " ye shall live also' 5 (John. xiv. 19). Christ 
lives in his people to the end of time, not simply as a natural 
organic root, but as a " quickening spirit." He is present with 
them, and mystically joined to them, in the form of Life ; com- 
prehending of course the most perfect personal consciousness, 
and freely imparting itself, as the absolute ground of all true 
personality, to the whole body of which he is the Head. 

This union then is not of nature as such, but of the Spirit. 
We shall err however grievously, if we conceive of the Spirit in 

19* 



222 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



this case as something separate from the proper presence of 
Christ himself, or as forming a medium of communication only 
for the divine nature of Christ with the soul of the believer ab- 
stractly considered. Both of these suppositions stand in broad 
contradiction to the Scriptures, and serve equally at last to 
reduce the doctrine of the mystical union to a mere figment, by 
making it moral only, and not real. 

We read of the Spirit of God, as present and active in the 
world, under a certain form, before the incarnation of Christ. 
But we must not confound this agency with the relation, in 
which he has come to stand to the Church since, in consequence 
of the union thus established between the divine nature and our 
own. It is by the incarnation properly, that the way has been 
opened for a true descent of the Spirit into the sphere of the hu- 
man existence as such. John goes so far as to say there was no 
Holy Spirit (ovrfco yap ry Ttvtvfxa aytoy*), till Jesus was glorified 
(John vii. 39). This does not mean of course that he did not 
exist. ; but it limits the proper effusion of the Spirit, as known 
under the New Testament, to the Christian dispensation as such. 
It teaches besides, that the person of Jesus, as the Word made 
flesh, forms the only channel or medium, by which it was possi- 
ble for this effusion to take place. The Holy Ghost accordingly, 
as the Spirit of Christ, is, in the first place, active simply in the 
Saviour himself. In this view, however, he cannot be separated 
from the person of Christ. He constitutes rather the form, in 
which the higher nature of Christ reveals its force. In the end, 
the whole person of the Son of Man is exalted into the same 
order of existence. Humanity itself in this way, as joined with 
the everlasting Word, is made to triumph over the law of infir- 
mity and mortality, to which it was previously subject in its 
own nature, and takes henceforward the character of spirit, in 
distinction from that of mere flesh. All this immediately, as 
now said, only in the person of Christ. But all, at the same 
time, in Christ as the second Adam. The full glorification of 
our nature as thus represented, was the constitution in fact of a 
new and higher order of life in the world, for humanity as a 
whole. With the final triumph of the Spirit in the glorified hu- 
manity of Christ, this higher order of life began to reveal itself 
with power on the day of Pentecost, (Acts ii. 1 — 4) ; since which 
time, it has continued regularly active in the world by means of 
the Church; which is itself the product and extension in this 
way of the new creation, commencing in the Saviour's person. 

In accordance with what has now been said, we find the per- 
son_of Christ exhibited to us in the New Testament alwaysT 



* The addition foSo^oy, is acknowledged, on all hands, to be spurious. 



miiLICAL ARGUMENT. 



223 



under a two-fold aspect — though it remains of course essentially 
the same in its constitution throughout. He is presented to our 
view, first under a mortal form, and then in his resurrection 
state. In taking our nature upon him, he was made ki all 
respects like as we are, only without sin. (Heb. iv. 15. v. 2, 7). 
He appeared " in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. viii. 3) ; 
" made of a woman, made under the law" (Gal. iv. 4). The 
humanity which he assumed was fallen, subject to infirmity, and 
liable to death. In the end, " he was crucified through weak- 
ness" (2 Cor. xiii. 4). Under all this low estate however, the 
power of a divine life was always actively present, wrestling as 
it were with the law of death it was called to conquer, and sure 
of its proper victory at the last. This victory was displayed in 
the resurrection. It was not possible that he should remain in 
the grave (Acts ii. 24). " He was declared to be the Son of 
God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the 
resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4). The Spirit of holi- 
ness here (xata rtpsvpa, aytwcfwvj^j) stands contrasted with the 
" flesh," or common humanity, according to which (xata cd^xa) 
he was of the seed of David (v. 3), and as. such capable of 
death. It denotes then his higher nature, in the power of which 
his whole person was, by this triumph, raised into a new undy- 
ing state, and clothed with the attributes and prerogatives of a 
divine existence. In Rom. viii. 11, the resurrection of Christ 
is inseparably joined with the third person of the ever blessed and 
glorious Trinity, as one and the same life. Whether as the 
Spirit of the Father, or as the Spirit of Christ himself, his 
agency, proceeding as it does from both, constitutes the form, 
in which the new creation in Christ Jesus is carried forward, 
first in his own person and subsequently with the Church. The 
resurrection state of the Saviour then, especially as made com- 
plete at his ascension, is itself spirit (rfrtSjua), in the way of dis- 
tinction from the flesh (tf«£i) or common mortal state in which 
he had appeared before. The two states are set in close con- 
trast, 1 Pet. iii. 18, where it is said : " Christ also hath once 
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us 
to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
Spirit" or as it should read rather in the Spirit (^awf^aj 
fihv oagxi, ^wrtot^f^ Ttvfvjuan). " Caro hie pro externo homine 
capitur," says Calvin ; " spiritus pro divina potentia, qua Chris- 
tus victor a morte emersit." The victory however must be un- 
derstood to extend to the whole man, external as well as internal, 
transforming the very flesh itself into spirit. It is the full tri- 
umph of Christ's higher life over the limitations with which 
it had been called to struggle in its union with our fallen hu- 
manity ; by which this humanity itself is raised into the sphere 



224 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



of the same life, and completely transfused with its power, in 
the everlasting glorification of the Son of Man. So, 1 Tim. 
iii. 16, " God was manifest in the flesh" — he emptied himself 
(eavtbp ixivco6£ y Phil. ii. 7), took upon himself the form of a ser- 
vant, was made in the likeness of men, and being found in 
fashion as a man humbled himself, and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross; but it is added, he was "jus- 
tified in the Spirit" the power of that higher nature, which 
wrought with supernatural force even under his humiliation 
itself, and came finally to its full and proper victory in his resur- 
rection.* His true character came thus fully into view, being vin- 
dicated or justified by this triumphant demonstration itself; as 
the result of which he was " received up into glory," and is set 
down at the right hand of God, " far above all principality, and 
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, 
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come" (Eph. 
i. 20, 21. Phil. ii. 9—11. Heb. xii. 2). The somewhat dif- 
ficult passage, Heb. ix. 14, seems to find its key, in the same 
distinction of Christ's glorified state, from the mere mortal con- 
dition with which it had been preceded. The " eternal Spirit," 
rtvEvfio^os atWoi)), through which he " offered himself without 
spot to God," must be understood of the divine order of exist- 
ence, to which his whole person was exalted after his death, as 
contrasted with the dying form in which he had appeared before. 
This formed itself the complete triumph of the Spirit, in his 
person, over all that was contrary to its own nature in our fallen 
flesh ; and in the power of it, he presented himself before God 
once for all, an offering of everlasting value, by which he hath 
perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Heb. ix. 11 — 14, 
24—28. x. 10— 14).f • 

Thus made perfect in the Spirit — his entire person raised 
above the power of death, and filled at every point with the im- 
mortality of heaven itself — the blessed Redeemer " became the 
author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." His 
glorification opened the way for the free outflowing of the Spirit, j 
the same divine life with which he was himself filled, on the | 
surrounding world, (John vii. 38, 39). " Having received of the 
Father," says Peter on the day of Pentecost, " the promise of 
the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and 
hear" (Acts ii. 33). He became for others, what he was thus 
shown to be within himself, 7tv£vfxa Zaorcoiovp (1 Cor. xv. 45), a 

* Spiritus nomine comprehendit quicquid in Christo divinum fuit ac supra 
hominem. Calvin, in loc. 

t So the passage is interpreted by Bleek, in his Commentary on the Epistle 1 
to the Hebrews, 1840 ; in point of learning and judgment, the highest autho- j 
rity in this form that could be produced. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



225 



quickening or life-giving spirit ; from whom the power of a new 
creation was to be carried forward under the same form, in the 
world, by the Church, even as the fallen life of the first Adam 
had been transmitted in the course of nature to all his posterity. 

From all this it is clear, in the first place, that we have no 
right to separate Christ from his Spirit, in such a way as to sup- 
pose the presence of the one where the other was not present at 
the same time. " Christum a Spiritu suo qui divellunt, eum 
faciunt mortuo simulachro vel cadaveri similem."* Thus, Rom. 
viii, 9 — 11, the indwelling of the Spirit and the indwelling of 
Christ in believers, are exhibited as one and the same thing. 
And so, in his last discourse with his disciples, our Lord him- 
self explicitly identifies with the promise of the Holy Ghost, the 
promise of his own return. The coming of this divine Para- 
clete required indeed, as we have already seen, the removal of 
Christ from the earth, so far as his first form of existence (ivcagxi) 
was concerned. He must be glorified to make room for the 
effusion of the Spirit. " If I go not away, the Comforter will 
not come" (John xvi. 7). This was to make roonrin fact how- 
ever, only for his own return in a higher form of existence. " I 
will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, 
that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of Truth ; 
whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nei- 
ther knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he dwelleth with you, 
and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless (d^avovs); 
I will come to you" (John xiv. 16 — 18, 22, 23). The best 
commentators of the present day, Ohhauscn, Tholuck, Luecke, 
&c, agree with Luther and Calvin, that the coming of himself 
to which the Saviour here refers, is to be understood neither of 
his resurrection simply nor of his second visible advent at the 
end of the world ; but of his presence by the Spirit, of whose 
mission he had just spoken. It is all the same promise. The 
persons of the adorable Trinity are indeed distinct. But we 
must beware of sundering them into abstract subsistences, one 
without the other. They subsist in the way of the most perfect 
mutual inbeing and intercommunication. The Spirit of Christ 
is not his representative or surrogate simply, as some would 
seem to think ; but Christ himself under a certain mode of sub- 
sistence ; Christ triumphant over all the limitations of his moral 
state, (fworfoi^fts Ttvevpati), " received up into glory," and thus 
invested fully and for ever with his own proper order of being 
in the sphere of the Holy Ghost. In this form, he is present 
with the Church more intimately and really than he could be in 

* Calvin, on Rom. viii., 9. By the Spirit here, he says, we are to under- 
stand, i( modus habitations Christi in nobis." 



226 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



any other. " Where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. xvii. 20). " Lo 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt, 
xxviii. 20). 

No less clear is it, in the second place, that the higher order 
of existence to which Christ has been advanced in the Spirit, 
involves his humanity, in its full constitution both as body and 
soul, and is made to flow over in this form to his people. It was 
in view of his humanity alone indeed, that any such exaltation 
was required. The divine Logos, as such, had been in union 
with the Spirit from all eternity. But in becoming flesh, this 
higher life was sunk for the moment into the limitations of the 
fallen mortal nature with which it became thus incorporated ; 
not of course for its own sake, but for the sake of the lower na- 
ture itself, that this might be raised, by the triumphant power of 
the Spirit, into the same order of existence. The glorification 
of Christ then, was the full advancement of our human nature 
itself to the power of a divine life; and the Spirit for whose pre- 
sence it made room in the world, was not the Spirit as extra- 
anthropological simply, under such forms of sporadic and tran- 
sient afflatus as had been known previously ; but the Spirit as 
immanent now, through Jesus Christ in the human nature itself 
— the form and power, in one word, of the new supernatural 
creation he had introduced into the world. He shall abide with 
you, says the Saviour, forever, (John xiv. 16). The Spirit then 
constitutes the form of Christ's presence and activity in the 
Church, and the medium by which he communicates himself to 
his people. But as such he is the comprehension in full of the 
blessed Redeemer himself; and the life he reveals, is that of the 
entire glorified person of the Son of Man, in which humanity 
itself has become quickened into full correspondence with the 
vivific principle it has been made to enshrine.* 

When Paul styles Christ a quickening or life-giving spirit, 
(1 Cor. xv. 45,) the reference is not at all to his nature as divine 
simply, or immaterial, but to his proper manhood as such. It is 
the resurrection of the body, which he has immediately in view. 
" As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." 
How? By virtue of a new divine element, introduced into our 
nature by the incarnation, which has already triumphed over 
mortality in the person of the second Adam himself, and by 
which he is now the principle of the resurrection, (nvsvwi 
lioortoiolv ,) for the body as well as for the soul, to all that believe 

* Nota unitatem spirilualem quae nobis cum Christo est, non anima tantum 
est, sed pertinere etiam ad corpus, ut caro simus de carne ejus, &c. Alioqui 
infirma esset spes resurrectionis, nisi talis esset nostra conjunctio, hoc est, 
plena et solida. Calvin, in 1 Cor. vi., 15. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



227 



on him to salvation. " There is a natural body," says the apostle, 
" and there is a spiritual body." The first springs from Adam, 
the second from Christ. As we have borne the image of the 
one, in our fallen mortal state, so must we also as Christians bear 
the image of the other. This will be fully reached in the resur- 
rection. Then what is sown at death in corruption, dishonour, 
weakness, a mere natural body, (cno^a $v%lx6v,) will be raised in 
incorruption, glory, and power, a spiritual body (crto^ua 7iv£vfxatvx6v"j. 
This corruptible shall put on incorruption ; this mortal shall put 
on immortality ; and so death shall be swallowed up in victory 
for ever. (1 Cor. xv. 42-54.) "He shall change our vile body, 
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according 
to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto 
himself" (Phil. iii. 21. John iii. 2). Here is no exclusion of the 
body from the sphere of the spirit, as being in itself of a totally 
opposite nature, and on this account incapable of sharing in the 
same life; but the last triumph of the Spirit is made to consist 
precisely, in the full transfiguration of the body itself into its own 
image. Nor is this change to be regarded as something wrought 
upon the body in the way simply of outward or foreign power — 
as though a stone were transformed suddenly into a winged 
bird ; for this would be to sink all into the sphere of blind dark 
nature. The glorification of the believer's body is the result of 
the same process that sanctifies his soul. The order of existence 
in both cases is the same, pneumatic, and not simply natural or 
psychic. "Our life is now hid with Christ in God; but when 
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear 
with him in glory" (Col. iii. 4); our whole man, of course, like 
his, quickened in the Spirit and made meet for heaven. As the 
subjects of this new creation, steadily advancing towards its ap- 
pointed end, Christians are described as being already in the 
Spirit and not in the flesh — that is, as participant in the pneu- 
matic order of existence, of which Jesus Christ is the principle 
and the Holy Ghost the medium, and not under the power 
simply of our nature as derived with a fallen character from the 
first Adam. And this is no moral relation merely, but the actual 
presence of a higher life in the most real form, extending to the 
person of the believer as a whole. His very body, accordingly, 
is constituted thus a temple of the Holy Ghost. (J Cor. vi. 19.) 
" He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (I Cor. vi. 17) ; 
not simply so far as his own spiritual nature, abstractly con- 
sidered, is concerned, but in the totality of his regenerated per- 
son, as united with Christ in the element or sphere of the Spirit, 
and not in the sphere of mere nature only. " Ye are not in the 
flesh, but in the Spirit" says the apostle, " if so be that the Spirit 
of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 



•228 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is 
dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteous- 
ness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the 
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall 
also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in 
yott' (Rom. viii. 9-11) * 

* That the whole spiritual life of the Christian, including the resurrection 
of his body, is thus organically connected with the mediatorial life of the 
Lord Jesus, might seem to be too plainly taught in the New Testament, to 
admit of any question ; and yet we find many slow to allow the mystery, not- 
withstanding. A very common view appears to be, that the whole salvation 
of the gospel is accomplished, in a more or less outward and mechanical way, 
by supernatural might and power, rather than by the Spirit of the Lord as the 
revelation of a new historical life in the person of the believer himself. So 
we have an outward imputation of righteousness to begin with ; a process of 
sanctification carried forward by the help of proper spiritual machinery 
brought to bear on the soul, including perhaps, as its basis, the notion of an 
abrupt creation de novo, by the fiat of the Holy Ghost; and finally, to crown 
all, a sudden unprepared refabrication of the body, as an entirely new pro- 
duct of Almighty power at the moment, to be superadded to the life of the 
spirit already complete in its state of glory. But the Scriptures sanction no 
such hypothesis in the case. The new creation is indeed supernatural ; but 
as such it is strictly conformable to the general order and constitution of life. 
It is a new creation in Christ Jesus, not by him in the way of mere outward 
power. The subjects of it are saved, only by being brought within the sphere 
of his life, as a regular, historical, divine human process, in the Church. The 
new nature implanted in them at their regeneration, is not a higher order of 
existence framed for them at the moment out of nothing by the fiat of God, 
but truly and strictly a continuation of Christ's life over into their persons. 
The growth of this life in them forms their sanctification. When they die, 
their bodies sleep in Jesus ; so that at the last God brings them with him again, 
when the Church is made complete by his second coming, (1 Thess. iv. 14.) 
The resurrection of the head and the ultimate resurrection of the members, 
form one process, as truly as the death of Adam and his posterity constitutes 
throughout but one and the same tremendous fact. In Christ, all shall be 
made alive. His resurrection is the pledge of theirs, even as the first fruits 
give token of the coming harvest, (1 Cor. xv. 22, 23.) He is " the beginning, 
the first-born from the dead," which, as we have seen, implies the force of a 
common law in the case of those that follow, (Col. i. 18.) It is the Spirit of 
Christ, now dwelling in believers, that shall in due time quicken their mortal 
bodies, in conformity with the power of his own resurrection state ; thus 
bringing to full manifestation the hidden life of the sons of God, in that adop- 
tion, (ylo^sslav — tr\v 6^io%vT!^(SLv tov crto^uaro$), towards which their whole 
salvation here struggles, and without which it can never be regarded as com- 
plete, (Rom. viii. 11, 19, 23.) It will not do, in view of such representa- 
tions, to speak of the resurrection of believers as an abrupt miracle, holding 
no inward historical connection with the resurrection life of Christ, as it 
wrought in them mightily, by the Spirit, before their death. True it is ascri- 
bed to supernatural power, (1 Thess. iv. 16,) and we are referred sometimes to 
1 Cor. xv. 52, as teaching that the change is to be instantaneous, and without 
preparation. But this is of no real weight. That the winding up of the mys- 
tery of Christianity should include revelations of divine power altogether 
transcending the present order of the Church, is only what might be expected ; 
while it is quite possible that these may be found after all but the proper com- 
pletion of the mystery itself, after it shall have been conducted to this point. 
As to the instantaneousness of the change, (so far as the passage referred to 
may be supposed to have the case of the dead in view at all,) it holds only, 
of course, of the revelation which is made to take place at the time. As 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



229 



Here then we see the nature of the mystical union, as it holds 
between Christ and his people. It falls not, in any sense, within 
the sphere of nature as such, and we cannot say of it in this 
view, that it is physical. But just as little are we at liberty to 
conceive of it as merely moral. Its sphere is that of the Spirit. 
In this sphere, however, it is in the highest measure real; far 
more real, indeed, than it could possibly be under any other con- 
ceivable form. Christ is not sundered from the Church by the 
intervention of his Spirit. On the contrary, he is brought nearer 
to it, and made one with it more intimately, beyond measure, in 
this way. than if he were still outwardly in the midst of it as in 
the days of his flesh. And this union, as we have seen, extends 
to the personal totality of the Saviour on the one side, and to the 
personal totality at the same time of the believer on the other. 
No conception can well be more unbiblical, than that by which 
the idea of spirit (rfyH^ua) in this case, is restrained to the form 
of mere mind, whether as divine or human, in distinction from 
body. The whole glorified Christ subsists and acts in the Spirit. 
Under this form his nature communicates itself to his people. 
They too, to the same extent, are made thus to live and walk in 
the Spirit, both in soul and body. Christ lives in them, and 
they live in Christ; and still, as their sanctification proceeds, this 
mutual indwelling becomes more intimate and complete, till, at 
last, in the resurrection, they appear fully transformed into the 
same image, " as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. iii. 18. 
Philip, iii. 21.) 

No more apt or beautiful illustration of this union between 
Christ and the Church can be imagined than that which he has 
himself furnished, in the allegory of the vine and its branches. 
(John xv. 1-8.) " I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that 
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." To understand this 
of a mere moral union, is to degrade the whole subject. " It is 
not to be disputed," says Tholuck, " that a higher relation is 
here exhibited than that of master and disciple, nothing less in 
fact than a real oneness, (eine ivesentliche Einheit,) efFected 
through the medium of faith." It is well remarked by Liicke, 
that the earthly, here as elsewhere, is exhibited by Christ as the 

Olsbausen justly remarks (Comm. in loc), this by no means excludes the sup- 
position of a previous preparation in the life of the believer for this result. It 
implies, indeed, that there has been no development during death. But so 
far as the previous state is concerned, it amounts to nothing more than this, 
that the process which was before hidden, is now brought to burst into view 
suddenly, in its complete form. The birth of the butterfly, as it mounts in 
the air on wings of light, is comparatively sudden too ; but this is the revela- 
tion only of a life, which had been gradually formed for this efflorescence 
before, under cover of the vile, unsightly larve. 

20 



230 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



image or copy (Abbild) of the heavenly. Nature finds its divine 
archetype or JJrbild at last, only in the sphere of the Spirit. 
Thus the connection which holds between the vine and its 
branches, is not so much a figure of the life union that has place 
between Christ and believers, as the very reflex of this mystery 
itself. He is accordingly the true vine, in whom is revealed, in 
this case, the full reality, of which only an adumbration is pre- 
sent in all lower forms of life. The union between the vine and 
its branches is organic. They are not placed together in an out- 
ward and merely mechanical way. The vine reveals itself in the 
branches ; and the branches have no vitality apart from the vine. 
All form one and the same life. The nature of the stock is re- 
produced continually, with all its qualities, in every shoot that 
springs from its growth, no matter how far removed from the 
root. And all this is only the symbol of Christ's relation to his 
people. Here, in a far higher sphere, the region of the Spirit as 
distinguished from that of mere nature, it is one and the same 
life again that reigns in the root and all its branches. The union 
is organic. The parts exist not separately from the whole, but 
grow out of it, and stand in it continually, as their own true and 
proper life. Christ dwells in his people by the Holy Ghost, and 
is formed in them the hope of glory. They grow up into him 
in all things; and are transformed into the same image, from 
glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. The life of Christ is 
reproduced in them, under the same true human character that 
belongs to it in his own person. 

The allegory of the body, as borrowed by Paul particularly 
from another sphere of life, in illustration of the same subject, 
is no less full of instruction. A common political corporation 
may indeed be represented by the same comparison, so far as the 
idea of mutual subserviency on the part of its members is con- 
cerned • as in the case of the apologue of Menenius Agrippa, 
once employed to compose a civil discord at Rome, which is 
brought forward sometimes as a parallel to 1 Cor. xii. 14-26. 
But as Calvin well remarks, on this passage, the two cases are 
of a wholly different character ; since the ground of unity in the 
Church is always represented by Paul to be of a far deeper na- 
ture than is to be found anywhere else; nothing less, in fact, than 
the life of Christ himself, mystically flowing through its entire 
constitution. " As the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body ; 
so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into 
one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond 
or free ; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Cor. 
xii. 12, 33, 27. Rom. xii. 4, 5.) " Christ is head over all 
things to the Church, whichjs his body, the fulness of him that 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



231 



filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 22, 23). From him, as its head, « the 
whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the 
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edi- 
fying of itself in love." (Eph. nr. 15, 16. v. 23, 30. Col.'i. 18, 
24. ii. 19.) The relation here exhibited involves of course a real 
life union, of the most intimate character. The head is not in 
the members, nor in contact with them, locally ; but all local 
connection falls immeasurably short of the bond that holds be- 
tween it and the body. Nor is the union this simply, that the 
members are ruled and conducted by the will of the head. It is 
the presence of a common life — the animal spirit, as it has been 
called— always proceeding from the head into the limbs, and 
having no proper existence in a single limb under any other 
form. But does the spirit of life in this case, the basis of such 
organic unity, remain in the body as a mere abstract force? By 
no means. It rules the whole process of assimilation and repro- 
duction, and thus calls into being continually the material volume 
and substance of every limb, as well as its vital activity. The 
head is in this way in the members, as the principle from which 
unceasingly all their existence is drawn. And so it is with the 
relation of Christ to the Church, only in a far higher order of 
life. It is no mechanical conjunction that makes them one. The 
case excludes the supposition of every thing like a magical or 
merely outward transfer of life from Christ to his people, such 
as is implied in the dogma of transubstantiation. But neither, 
on the other hand, is the conjunction simply spiritualistic; for 
this would be to resolve all at last into a merely moral character. 
In distinction from both these conceptions, we say of it that it is 
organic, in the fullest sense of this term. The new human life 
in Christ reaches over, as a central uncompounded force, by the 
Spirit, into the persons of Christ's people ; and there reveals 
itself, with constantly reproductive energy, under the same form, 
true always to its own nature, till at length the whole man, 
spirit, soul and body, is transformed fully into its image. 

Another very remarkable and most significant illustration, is 
employed (Eph. v. 22 — 33,) with reference to the same subject. 
Even under the Old Testament, the marriage relation was fre- 
quently made the type or symbol of the covenant connection 
established between God and his- people. So in the Apocalypse, 
the Church is styled the bride, the Lamb's wife, (Rev. xix. 7. 
21 : 2, 9)'. But all falls short of the representation which is 
here presented to our view. De Wette, and other commenta- 
tors of like rationalistic stamp, resolve all of course in this case, 
as in every case of the same sort, into mere figure and sound. 
But this is to do violence to the whole spirit of the passage. 



232 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



Paul himself declares the subject to be a "great mystery;'' and 
it is plain that he feels himself struggling throughout with a 
thought, too vast altogether for the reach and grasp of the mere 
understanding as such. Marriage itself is a mystery; not, in- 
deed, a sacrament, in the proper sense, as it is held to be by the 
Church of Rome ; but still of what may be termed sacramental 
significance and solemnity; a true and proper symbol in this 
view of the mystical union, as it holds between Christ and his 
Church. # " So ought men to love their wives," says the apos- 
tle, " as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth him- 
self." And thus the Lord regards and cherishes the Church. 
" For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones." 
This means, according to Pelagius, " membra ejus eum debent 
imitari in omnibus!" How different the commentary of Calvin. 
" The passage," he tells us, "is classic on our mystical commu- 
nication with Christ. It is not to be considered hyperbolical, 
in this view, but simple ; and it not only signifies that Christ 
partakes of our nature, but is intended to express something 
deeper and more emphatic. For the words of Moses, Gen. ii. 24, 
are quoted. And what now is the sense? As Eve was formed 
out of the substance of her husband Adam, that she might be 
as it were a part of himself ; so we, that we may be true mem- 
bers of Christ, by the communication of his substance, coalesce 
with him into one body." [Com. in loc.) The Church may be 
styled thus, according to the beautiful allusion of Hooker to this 
comparison with the case of Eve, " a true native extract out of 
Christ's body." Clearly the apostle has in his mind here more 
than any merely figurative or moral incorporation with the 
Saviour. The stress of the quotation from Gen. ii. 24, lies on 
the last clause, " they two shall be one flesh;" and this is applied 
directly to the case of Christ and the Church, (which he adds 
immediately, is a " great mystery,") in justification of the pre- 
vious declaration, " We are members of his body, of his flesh, 
and of his bones." The whole passage is well exhibited, with 
most thorough and comprehensive exegesis, in the sense now 
given, by Harless; whose commentary on the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, may be said to throw all others into the shade, and 
whose judgment in this case, especially when backed by the high 
authority of Calvin, no man of learning at least can fail to 
respect. 

* Dass die Ehe, besonders das, worm ihre Eigenthumlichkeit beetelit, Gen. 
ii. 24, ein Heiligthum sei, so dass mit ihm das Heiligste, was eines Menschen 
Besitzthum wird, anschaulich gemacht werden darf, wird die Bestialitat der 
Sunde freilich nie begreifen ; aber der Geist muss es erfahren und begreifen. 
Fur jene schreibt auch nicht der Apostel ; fur sie giebt es im Himmel und 
auf Erden kein heiliges Geheimniss ; sie findet uberall nur den Fluch ihrer 
cigenen Verworfenheit. Harless. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



233 



It is only on the ground of this real, inward life union be- 
tween Christ and his people, that we can properly appreciate or 
understand much of the common phraseology of the New Tes- 
tament, in speaking of Christians and their peculiar character 
and state. In various ways, Christ is described as dwelling and 
working in his people; and so on the other side, nothing is 
more common than for Christians to be spoken of as in Christ. 
All Christian relations hold only in the Lord. All Christian 
graces are to be cultivated, and all Christian works performed, 
in the Lord. Exemplifications are needless. The whole Chris- 
tian life is represented under the same formula. In Christ is 
only another expression for Christian itself. So common and 
familiar indeed is this style, that the peculiarity by many is 
hardly noticed at all. But substitute Moses for Christ; and at 
once we must feel how wholly inapplicable such language is to 
a merely moral relation. The whole New Testament assumes 
that the relation of Christ to his people is more than moral ; that 
it involves a real community of life, in virtue of which, as he 
dwells in their hearts by faith, so they may be said to be rooted 
and built up in him also unto every good word and work. (Eph. 
iii. 16—19; Col. ii. 6—10). 

Specially striking, in this view, are those passages in which 
Christians are represented as having already in Christ all that 
is comprehended in the complete idea of the Christian salvation. 
In the Saviour himself, the victory over death and hell was con- 
summated in his resurrection and ascension. In the Church, 
however, as a whole, and in every individual believer, the new 
life reveals itself as a process. In no sense can the Christian, 
viewed in himself, be said to be complete. And yet as compre- 
hended in the life of Christ, he is often spoken of as actually 
possessing already all that this involves. Thus, as we have 
already seen, he is described as having eternal life now; though 
the full sense of his privilege in this respect, of course remains 
to be developed hereafter. His life is hid with Christ in God. 
So he is not only justified, but even sanctified and glorified in 
Christ. "Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all 
principality and power," (Col. ii. 10). Paul seems at times 
almost to lose sight of the distinction between Christ and the 
Christian, in the overwhelming sense he has of their oneness. 
We are crucified, dead and buried with Christ, and have risen 
with him again to a new and higher life, (Rom. vi. 3 — 11. vii. 
4. viii. 11. Gal. ii.20. Phil. iii. 9 — 12. CoL ii. 12. iii. 1—4). 
This form of speaking is quite too strong and deliberate, to be 
resolved into mere rhetorical flourish. Nor will it meet the case 
fully, to say that it turns merely upon a certain sort of analogy, 
that may be supposed to hold between Christ's outward history 

20* 



234 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



and the spiritual experience of the believer. The outward and 
inward do indeed flow together in the two cases. But it is only 
because the one is really and truly involved in the other.* The 
new life, in the Spirit, first in Christ and then in his people, 
extends to the whole man ; and being in both organically the 
same, is found in the end to repeat itself, with true reproduction 
outward as well as inward, to the utmost extremities of the body 
of which he is the mystical head. Thus every Christian may be 
said to be in Christ potentially from the beginning, all that he is 
destined to become actually when his salvation shall be com- 
plete. The power that is actively at work in his person, is the 
same all-conquering life (Phil. iii. 21) that wrought mightily in 
Christ, when he was raised from the dead and set at God's right 
hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, 
and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not 
only in this world, but also in that which is to come ; and was 
thus constituted gloriously head over all things to the Church, 
which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all, (Eph, 
i. 19 — 23). And in view of this relation, the apostle does not 
hesitate to add immediately afterwards, " He hath quickened us 
together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made 
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," (Eph. ii. 1, 
5, 6). All in the past tense, not in the future.f So Rom. viii. 
30, not only the calling of believers and their justification, but 
their glorification also, is exhibited as something already com- 
plete, (q$$ 6s s^ixalatis, 7fovT!ov<; xal f^cfatfs ). 

On this last passage, Olshausen's remarks are particularly 
striking; and closely related as they are to the whole topic now 
in hand, I may be permitted to quote them in full. " The 
essential point," he tells us, " in the doctrine of Christ's active 

* The acts of God for our redemption are all fulfilled and accomplished in 
Jesus Christ. The several steps of development in Christ's life, are for this 
very reason so many steps in the work of redemption, from his birth or incar- 
nation on to his ascension. For he is our redemption, not his doctrine, nor 
his work, nor his example ; his work is not to be sundered from his person ; 
and his life and death are the form precisely in which it has been accom- 
plished. It is sheer nonsense to give up the personal and historical Christ, 
and still think of retaining a firm hold upon Christianity." Kliefoth. Theorie 
des Kultus, §. 18S. On this ground, he urges the true significance and impor- 
tance of the Church Festivals, as related to Christ. They are not simply the 
memorial, but the bond also, of the proper vital union that subsists between 
him and his people. 

t Et ceite quamvis salus nostra 'in spe sit adhuc abscondita, quantum ad 
nosspectat; in Christo nihilominus beatam immortalitatem et gloriam possi- 
demus. Ideo addit, In Christo ; quia nondum haec quos commemorat, in 
membris apparent, sed in solo capite ; propter arcanam tamen unitatem, ad 
membra certo pertinent. Calvin, Comm. Eph. ii. 6. — Christus ist der reale 
Typus fur alle Lebensgestaltung der Heiligen bis ans Ende, so dass, was sie 
leben, nur die Entwickelung des in Keim schon in ihm Gegebenen und von 
ihm aus in ihr Wesen Gepflantzten ist. Olshausen in loc. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



235 



obedience is this, that his agency in our salvation is not negative 
in its form simply, but full as much -positive. Christ does not 
simply take away sin in the case of men, and then leave them to 
work out holiness for themselves, but he has by his holy life 
wrought out this also, for himself and for all his people ; so that 
both, the destruction of the old and also the creation of the new, 
in the process of regeneration, are alike Christ's work, both 
completed by him too in his earthly state ; so as to be in the first 
place imputed to individual believers, and then communicated to 
them in a gradual way. This is here most distinctly expressed 
by the words sSwwuW* xai iSo&as. Even the first term implies 
a real communication of the Sixaioavvyj X^oa-tov (comp. Rom. iii. 
21;) the other however, iSof-ows, represents it as a matter of ac- 
tual possession even under its full form of holiness and perfec- 
tion — though Paul had a little before (v. 23,) disclaimed this for 
himself and Christians generally. As then the whole human 
race, naturally considered, lay originally in Adam, and all his- 
tory is thus but the development of what his nature included ; so 
Christ also is the real bearer of the entire Church, the new cre- 
ation, the sanctified humanity, as he not only by the virtue of his 
atonement destroys the old, but to the same extent creates the 
new also, and forms his own sacred image in every believing 
soul. Only in this view does it become clear, how faith is the 
one and all of the Christian life. The Christian is not called, 
either before ox after his conversion, to form an independent holi- 
ness for himself; but only to receive continuously the stream of 
life that flows upon him from Christ; and this reception is itself 
faith. Just as the plant, when the germ has begun to grow, 
needs only to take in moisture, air and light, in order that it 
may unfold itself from within ; whilst all the handling of an un- 
skilful gardener, for the purpose of precipitating its growth in some 
different way, serves only to frustrate what it seeks to advance. 
And still this absolute pas sivity is at the same time the highest 
activity; since Christ works, not icithout the man, but in the 
very inmost depths of his being, infusing into the will itself the 
active force of his own life. Only, the believer always feels that 
the power of which he is thus possessed is not from himself, and 
his humility accordingly grows with his perfection ; it is not he 
that works, but Christ lives and works in him, (Gal. ii. 20). 
Hence we may see, how in the passage before us it is just the 
aorist which is required for its proper sense; so that every at- 
tempt to get rid of this tense must be absolutely rejected. The 
future here is not in place; for with the word, "It isfnishedt" 
our Lord made his whole Church, together with the xtltsie, nega- 
tively and positively complete, for all ages. No mortal can add 
any thing, however little, to his work; all that unfolds itself in 



V 



236 THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 

the individual members of his Church through distant centuries, 
is but the development of what was previously at hand in his 
person. The Church and every particular believer, along with 
the xtiais which forms its necessary basis, are " God's workman- 
ship created in Christ Jesus," (Eph. ii. 10). Redemption is a 
new, glorified creation, and all creation must remain for ever the 
prerogative of God alone. The connection imperatively re- 
quires this sense; for it is the certainty of salvation, as superior 
to all earthly contingency, that Paul wishes to establish. But 
there is no true certainty, except as it lies in a divine act. Sal- 
vation would be the most uncertain of all uncertainties, if it were 
made to rest, not on the objective act of God in Christ, but upon 
the fluctuating subjectivity of men themselves. Only under this 
objective view does the gospel become a true joyful message, 
which nothing can overthrow, and which infidelity itself can only 
reject. 5 ' 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



237 



SECTION VI. 

joiin vi. 51-58. 

The sixth chapter of John is allowed on all hands to be of 
special interest and importance, in relation to the subject with 
which we are now employed. It has been of course very 
variously interpreted, both in ancient and modern times ; since 
in the nature of the case, the light in which it has been regarded 
has always depended on the view taken of the relation in general 
to which it refers. The passage, v. 51-58, in which the repre- 
sentation of the whole chapter is advanced to its most startling 
climax, has been felt to be particularly difficult ; as in addition 
to other sources of embarrassment, it has been entangled from a 
very early period with the sacramental question. A succinct 
history of the interpretation of the passage, in this view, is pre- 
sented by Lucke, in an excursus appended to the second volume 
of his Comm. on John, 2nd edition. In the early Church 
Origen and Basil the Great, denied all reference in it to the sa- 
crament of the Lord's Supper. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, 
held the opposite view ; which became general subsequently in 
the Catholic Church. With the Reformation, the case was 
changed. Not only Zuingli and Calvin, but Luther also, on 
different grounds, agreed in the view that the passage refers only 
to the general reception of Christ by believers, and not to the 
eucharistic communion as such. Some have still insisted since 
on the other view. But the more important modern commenta- 
tors generally allow, that there is no sufficient room to suppose 
any reference whatever to the Lord's Supper. 

So far as the historical institution is concerned, this judgment 
is no doubt correct. But it is equally clear, that the idea which 
the Holy Supper embodies is the same that is here brought into 
view; just as in the conversation with Nicodemus, the idea in- 
volved in the sacrament of baptism is urged, (John iii. 5,) al- 
though the sacrament itself in its proper sense was not yet insti- 
tuted. 

Throughout the chapter, Christ exhibits himself to the Jews, 
with whom he was in conversation at Capernaum, as the true 
source and support of all spiritual life. " Labour not for the 
meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto 
everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you; for 
him haih God the Father sealed. — The bread of God is he 



238 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the 
world. — I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall 
never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. — 
This is the will of him that hath sent me, that every one which 
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life ; 
and I will raise him up at the last day. — Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that 
bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, 
and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, 
that a man may eat thereof and not die." After the view we 
have already taken of the relation of Christ to his Church, we 
cannot be at a loss for a moment, with regard to the general 
sense in which this strong language is to be understood. It is 
of course in one respect figurative; as in the nature of the case 
all representations must be, that are borrowed from the sphere of 
nature to render intelligible what belongs to the sphere of the 
Spirit. But shall we say, that it refers only to Christ's doctrine, 
as the proper food of the soul. Even de Wette will tell us, that 
such a supposition here is decidedly false. The reference to 
his person is altogether too full and clear. Jesus himself is the 
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. We 
come indeed by faith. But in doing so, we go truly out of our- 
selves and become joined to his very life, as the centre of a new 
consciousness in our own. " Neque enim fides Christum intuetur 
duntaxat quasi procul remotum," says Calvin, " sed eum amplec- 
titur ut noster fiat, et in nobis habitet ; facit ut coalescamus in 
ejus corpus, communem habeamus cum ipso vitam, unum de- 
nique simus cum ipso." {Comm. John vi. 35.) The union in- 
volves in this view everlasting life ; not simply in the form of a 
promise, but as an actual possession. Even the resurrection 
itself is potentially included in it, as the proper necessary con- 
summation of the new form of existence to which it gives rise. 
The subject of this life may die ; but says the Saviour, I will 
raise him up at the last day. Here is something far deeper than 
mere doctrine, or mere moral influence of any kind. Christ 
gives us life, only by communicating himself to us in a real 
way. 

It is commonly admitted, that with the 51st verse, some ad- 
vance is made on the general thought previously presented; and 
it is now for the most part granted also, that this consists in a 
specific reference to Christ's death, as the point in which espe- 
cially his mediatorial character may be said to have become 
complete. It is not easy indeed to avoid the feeling, that the 
language carries in it such a reference. 

"I am the living bread," says the Saviour solemnly, "which 
came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



230 



live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which 
I will give for the life of the world." By his flesh, to be given 
for the life of the world, cannot well be understood anything else 
than the sacrifice which he has made of himself for sin upon the 
cross. The Jews, we are told, now strove among themselves, 
saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? "Then 
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have 
no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, 
hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For 
my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He 
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and 
I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the 
Father ; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." 

All must feel the close correspondence, that holds between 
what is here said and the terms afterwards employed in the 
institution of the Lord's Supper. Here, as there, the participa- 
tion of the believer in Christ, is made to stand particularly in 
eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The same idea evi- 
dently is exhibited in both cases ; and whatever we find to be 
the sense and force of the representation in one case, we can 
hardly help allowing to it the same significance also in the other. 
In the eucharist, there is reference directly to Christ's death ; it 
is his body broken and his blood shed for sin, of which we are 
called to partake. And so in the passage now before us, the 
reference is the same. The Saviour had spoken before of his 
person in general, as the bread of life. Here he fastens atten- 
tion upon his person under a particular view. It is by his death, 
he is constituted the author of eternal life to all that turn towards 
him for this purpose. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, 
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. "This — it is said 
in conclusion — is that bread which came down from heaven ; 
not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead ; he that eateth 
of this bread, shall live forever." 

The passage then looks directly to the redemption wrought 
out by Christ upon the cross ; but not to this, as something ab- 
stracted from his life, in the general view in which it had been 
presented before. It simply represents the form, under which 
specifically the life comprehended in Christ's person for the 
benefit of a dying world, becomes fully effective towards this 
end. The case required, as we have before seen, a deadly con- 
flict with him that had the power of death (Heb. ii. 14, 15). 
The Life, to show itself positively as immortality, must reveal 
itself negatively, in the first place, as the resurrection. Hence 
% its whole force, and with it the whole power of the Christian 
salvation, may be regarded as concentrated in the idea of the 



240 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



atonement, by which the power of sin and hell was broken by 
Christ's death upon the cross. " He was delivered for our 
offences, and so raised again for our justification 55 (Rom. iv. 25). 
But all this at last, is only the life of the Son of Man, brought 
into a real, and not simply fantastic, correspondence with our 
wants. He is still personally " the bread of life. 55 Only, to be 
so in fact, he must be apprehended in the character in which he 
is here exhibited to our view. We must eat his flesh and drink 
his blood ; participate actually and truly in his life, as it was 
made an offering for sin. This it is emphatically that constitutes 
him the bread which came down from heaven, of which if any 
man eat he shall live forever. 

Not by the atonement then, as something made over to us 
separately from Christ's person, are we placed in the possession 
of salvation and life; but only by the atonement as comprehended 
in his person itself, and received through faith in this form. To 
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, is not to lay 
hold of the merits of his death simply in an abstract way, a thing 
impossible in the nature of the case; but to lay hold of them in 
Christ himself, who is made of God unto us all that we need for 
righteousness as well as life. Such clearly is the sense of the 
passage before us, taken in connection with the whole discourse 
of which it is a part. The hunger under which the world is 
suffering spiritually, does not consist merely in the want of reli- 
gious instruction or new impulses and motives for the will. The 
aliment for which it calls, must come to it in the form of life. 
In this form accordingly it is exhibited by Jesus Christ, as it is 
to be found nowhere else. Here is the new birth of the Spirit 
(John iii. 3, 5, 6), secured by a living reception of Christ him- 
self (John i. 12, 13). Here is the water that quenches forever 
the deep inward thirst of the human soul, that never can be more 
than momentarily allayed from any other quarter; " a well of 
water 55 in them that receive it, "springing up into everlasting 
life 55 (John iv. 10 — 14). " If any man thirst" says the Saviour, 
"let him come unto me and drink!" (John vii. 37, 38). Here 
again is the true bread of life, under the same form. " He that 
cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me 
shall never thirst. 55 Christ personally is this bread ; because it 
is only in his person, that the Life of the everlasting Word, 
which is the true Light of men, has revealed itself in the sphere 
of our common human existence (John i. 4, 14). Only in this 
form, does he still the gnawing hunger of humanity, by supply- 
ing it with the very substance of life itself; a hunger which is 
otherwise like the grave, that never cries, It is enough. " He 
that believeth on me, hath everlasting life. 55 But how ? What 
becomes of his sins, the curse of the broken law, the sentence 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



241 



of death already lodged in the inmost constitution of his nature ? 
The life, which is in Christ, includes all that is needed to meet 
in full the demands of the entire case. It has triumphed over 
death, and him that had the power of death. By the sacrifice 
of himself Jesus has put away sin, and perfected forever them 
that are sanctified (Heb. viii. 26; ix. 10, 14). The power of 
this sacrifice, is that particularly which imparts to his life its 
saving, renovating value, in the circumstances in which it is 
offered for our use. Still the sacrifice is only the life itself, in 
successful struggle with sin and death. It is not the doctrine 
in the case, but the fact only, that brings salvation; and this, 
let it be well considered, can never be separated from Christ's 
person. The bread of life then, in this view, is Christ as slain 
for the sins of the world, received into the believer and made 
one with him by the power of the Holy Ghost. We must eat 
his flesh and drink his blood ; otherwise we can have no life. 
His flesh is meat indeed — his blood drink indeed; fckrfc-Zs, in 
reality, not in a shadowy or relative sense merely, but absolutely 
and truly in the sphere of the Spirit. The participation itself 
involves everlasting life; not simply in the form of hope and 
promise, but in the way of actual present possession ; and not 
simply as a mode of existence for the soul abstractly considered, 
but as embracing the whole man in the absolute totality of his 
nature, and reaching out to the resurrection of the body itself 
as its legitimate and necessary end. Christ once crucified, but 
now in glory, is the principle of immortality in every true be- 
liever. As the Resurrection and the Life, he will raise him vp 
at the last day. " He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my 
blood, dwelleth in me and 1 in him (lv i^oi fxhsi, xdyCj h avr <!»)." 
Stronger still : " As the living Father hath sent me, and I live 
by the Father ; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." 
Could language more clearly teach, that the salvation which we 
have by Christ, including his whole mediatorial grace, comes to 
us only by the communication of his own life? 

All this at the same time is accomplished in a purely spiritual 
way, through the activity of faith. Here is no oral communica- 
tion with Christ's flesh and blood. And yet the communication 
is real. It is not the thought or image of Christ simply, that is 
apprehended in the case, but the very substance of his life itself, 
as it was once offered for sin and now reigns gloriously exalted 
in heaven. Such is the mystery of the new creation in the Spirit. 
The common understanding may object and cavil, in its old 
style, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? But still the 
testimony of God is clear and sure. God hath given to us eter- 
nal life; this life is in his Son, Jesus Christ; and it becomes 
ours only as we have the Son himself formed in us by the power 

21 



242 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



of the Holy Ghost. This then is the very nature of faith as con- 
cerned with our salvation, that it brings its subject truly and 
really within the scope of this life, and subjects his whole being 
to its organific action ; causing him thus to become a new man, 
or as the apostle has it, xawrj *Wc>t$, more and more, on to the 
final resurrection, in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

"It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh proflteth nothing; 
the words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are 
life." This observation of the Saviour, occurring in close con- 
nection with the passage before us, and having reference directly 
to the offence which had been taken with it on the part of many 
as " a hard saying," (John vi. 63), has been considered by some 
a clear intimation that all which had been spoken before was to 
be understood in the most common metonymical sense. They 
will have it that the whole of this most solemn representation, 
in which, over and over again, the necessity of eating Christ's 
flesh, and drinking his blood is urged, as that without which 
men can have no life — was intended only to bewilder and con- 
found the carnal Jews; while the true meaning of it comes 
simply to this, that we must be joined to the Saviour, by a be- 
lieving reception of his doctrine, or a simply mental correspon- 
dence with him at most in the power of his sufferings and death. 
But surely no exegesis could well be more poor and flat than 
this. It belongs itself emphatically to that very carnalism, to 
which it affects to be in its own way so vastly superior ; for it 
sticks plainly in the self-same abstraction, which rendered it so 
difficult for the Jews of Capernaum to understand our Saviour, 
and by which the things of the Spirit so generally are made to 
appear foolishness to the mere understanding as such. The 
imagination that Christ by the words, The flesh proflteth nothing, 
intended simply to intimate that Ms flesh or body could do no 
good, and that he must be understood therefore to refer in what 
he had said to a purely moral communication with his person, 
must be pronounced well nigh as crass as the notion of an actual 
oral manducation of his material flesh itself. Spirit and flesh 
here are opposed in a quite different and far deeper sense. The 
one represents the sphere of mere nature as embraced in the 
fallen life of Adam, soul, body, and all. The other designates 
the higher order of existence, of which Christ himself is the 
principle (itvsvfm fcoortocow), and which reaches out from him by 
the Spirit, as a new divine creation, over the whole range of 
our being. It is this that quickeneth or giveth life both to soul 
and body. The flesh on the other hand, whether as soul or 
body, proflteth nothing. 

The bearing of all this on the question of the eucharist, must 
be at once evident to every reflecting mind. The passage before 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



243 



us has no direct reference to this ordinance, as it was afterwards 
to be instituted. It refers to the Christian life in general. But 
very plainly the idea here exhibited, is the same that is presented 
to us in the institution of the Lord's Supper under a different 
form. If such a view as we have now taken of the extra-sacra- 
mental life of the believer, on the ground of the representation 
here made by Christ himself, be admitted with any clear and 
full conviction, it will not be possible to resist the impression, 
that the sacrament itself can involve, to say the least, nothing 
less. Those on the other hand who deny a real communication 
with Christ's person in the eucharist, must in the nature of the 
case deny also a real extra-sacramental union with him to the 
same extent. This does not imply that the communion of the 
sacrament and the general Christian life, are at last simply the 
same thing. It comes to this only, that the order of life com- 
prehended in the two cases is the same. A man lives by his 
food, in the same sense in. which his life holds as life, and not 
in some different sense. So here, if the new life of the Chris- 
tian be at last a moral relation only to the Saviour, the power of 
the sacrament must be of course of the same order. But if this 
new life stand in the form of a real incorporation with the per- 
son of the Redeemer, the power of the sacrament cannot hold in 
the form of mere good thoughts and good feelings. It must 
involve too a real participation, under its own form, in Christ's 
life. 

This much then we reach for the right understanding of the 
Holy Supper, by what we have thus far learned of the nature of 
the mystical union in general. As the communion of Christ's 
body and blood, concentrating in itself the inmost sense of the 
great fact of Christianity, it can involve nothing less at least than 
it was supposed to involve in the Calvinistic theory, as originally 
held by the Reformed Church generally. "In the Supper," to 
use the language of Ursinus, " we are made partakers not only 
of the Spirit of Christ, and of his satisfaction, justice, virtue and 
operation ; but also of the very substance and essence of his true 
body and blood, which was given for us to death on the cross, 
and which was shed for us, and are truly fed with the self-same 
unto eternal life." And yet this implies no local comprehension 
of the Saviour's body in the elements, no oral or corporeal con- 
tact with it in any way. The mystery holds not in the sphere 
of the flesh, but in the sphere of the Spirit. We feed upon the 
broken body and shed blood of Christ, by faith. But that which 
is imparted to us through our faith, by the power of the Holy 
Ghost, is the true divine human life of the Son of Man himself, 
objectively present in the sacramental transaction as such, and 
really carried over into our persons under this form. 



2U 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE, 



SECTION VII. 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



It must ever betray a most poor and narrow conception of the 
nature of Christianity as a whole, to suppose that the question 
of Christ's presence in the Eucharist may be settled by a few 
texts of scripture, taken in an isolated way, and without regard 
to the general revelation of which they form a part. It is not in 
this way, that the true weight of the scriptural evidence for any 
great truth is to be reached. The doctrine of the Trinity for 
instance is never exhibited under any such formal, categorical 
statement, as we find employed for the purpose in our modern 
catechisms and confessions. We may say the same thing of the 
doctrine of Original Sin. The Unitarian in the one case, and 
the Pelagian in the other have taken advantage of this circum- 
stance to create distrust with regard to both. So very momen- 
tous and fundamental as these points are allowed to be, how is 
it to be accounted for, they have asked, that they have not been 
so plainly and directly affirmed, as to cut off at once and forever 
all room for scepticism or cavil 1 The objection is specious; 
but we need only to go deeper into the true idea of the Chris- 
tian revelation, to feel its utter worthlessness. Christianity we 
have seen already to be a Life. Its form is the spirit that 
maketh alive, and not the letter that killeth. Its revelations are 
not theorems but facts; not facts in the form of mere tradition, 
but actually subsisting, always enduring facts; not disjointed, 
fragmentary facts, but a glorious system of facts, organically 
bound together and growing out of each other, as a single super- 
natural whole. A theology that builds all its doctrines upon 
mere abstract texts, may arrogate to itself the character of 
biblical, in the most eminent sense ; but it can never have any 
good claim to be considered so in reality. It belongs to the 
very genius of sect, to magnify itself in this way. It always 
affects to be biblical, in the highest degree. It will stand upon 
the bible, and upon nothing but the bible. In the end however, 
its biblicity is found to resolve itself invariably into such a poor, 
circumscribed conception of revealed truth, as is now described. 
Isolated texts, viewed through the medium of some particular 
sect hobby, are made to exhaust the whole proof, whether for or 
against the position on which they are made to bear. But no 
use of the scriptures can well be more truly unbiblical than this. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



245 



Christianity is not a skeleton, nor yet a corpse for the use of the 
dissecting room. The bible is not to be understood, by frag- 
ments, and as seen from any and every point of view where the 
beholder may happen to stand. All turns on the position of the 
beholder himself, and his power of observing and comprehend- 
ing the revelation as a whole. He must stand in the truth, have 
sympathy with it, feel the authority that belongs to it in fact, in 
order that he may have power to do justice at all to its presence. 
What could such a spirit as that of Voltaire, be expected to un- 
derstand of the apostle Paul? Who would trust the rationalism 
of Priestley, or the abstract spiritualism of the Quaker, in any 
exegetical judgment, bearing on the question of our Lord's divi- 
nity in the first case, or on the true idea of the Church in the 
second? All turns on the stand-point of the interpreter, and the 
comprehensive catholicity of his view. He must be consciously 
within the horizon, and underneath the broad canopy, of the 
new supernatural creation, he is called to contemplate ; and then 
each part of it must be studied and expounded, in full view of its 
relations to every other part, and to the glorious structure in 
which all are comprehended as a whole. This is the true con- 
ception of biblical theology. Only under this form, can bible 
proof, as it is called, in favour of or against any doctrine, be en- 
titled to the least respect. 

So in the case before us, the sacramental question can never 
be settled by the formula of institution, This is my body, This 
is my blood, separately considered ; nor by any other single text 
under the same abstract view. The interpretation of every such 
text, depends invariably and necessarily on the theological posi- 
tion, from which its bearings and relations are observed. Hence 
it means one thing to the Romanist, another thing to the Lu- 
theran, and something different altogether to the rationalistic 
Socinian. The idea of settling the sense of the eucharist by the 
words of institution separately taken, is perfectly quixotic. 

It has been said indeed, that this ambiguousness constitutes 
itself a strong presumption against the idea of any special mys- 
tery in the ordinance ; since more care must have been em- 
ployed, on this supposition, to guard the institution from being 
misunderstood. But every such judgment, proceeds on a wrong 
theory of the Christian revelation itself, as we have already at- 
tempted to show. Why is not the doctrine of the Trinity cate- 
gorically asserted ? Why have we not the constitution of Christ's 
person, succinctly described as in the Westminster Catechism? 
| Why is it not taught in so many words that infants are proper 
i subjects for baptism, and that the first day of the week was to be 
substituted for the seventh, as the Christian sabbath ? Simply, 
we answer, because the Christian revelation is constructed on aj 

21* 



246 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



wholly different plan, infinitely more worthy of its author, and 
infinitely better adapted for the accomplishment of its own glori- 
ous end. 

The Lord's Supper can never be understood, except as viewed 
in its relations to the whole system of truth, which has been 
brought to light by the bible. The view we have already taken 
then, of the new creation in Christ Jesus, and his mystical rela- 
tion to the Church, has all served only to open the way for 
placing the ordinance in its true and proper light. 

The great difficulty here is, in rising to a full, abiding sense 
of the truth and reality of Christianity itself, as a, supernatural 
constitution permanently established under this character in the 
world. We are too prone, to restrict the idea of supernatural 
interposition in this case, to the single historical person of Jesus 
Christ himself; an error that tends directly to throw a certain 
magical, docetic character, over the whole fact of the incarna- 
tion, and to sink Christianity at the same time to the form of a 
mere abstract spiritualism in the sphere of the flesh. For it is 
one thing to be spiritualistic in the flesh, and quite another thing 
to be divinely real in the Spirit. We must not sunder the super- 
natural in Christ, from the life of his body which is the Church. 
Christianity is strictly and truly a new creation in Christ Jesus ; 
a supernatural order of life, revealed and made constant and 
abiding, in the midst of the course of nature as it stood before. 
As such, it includes resources, powers, divine realities, not only 
peculiar to itself, but altogether transcending the common na- 
tural constitution of human life. All this, at the same time, 
under a true historical form. The supernatural has become 
itself natural; not in the way however of putting off its own dis- 
tinction, as compared with what nature had been before, and 
still is under any other view ; but by falling into the regular 
process of the world's history, so as to form to the end of time 
indeed its true central stream. To question the presence of 
such supernatural resources and powers in Christianity, when 
we look at it properly, is to question in fact the revelation of the 
supernatural in Christ himself. Either we must fall back at 
best to the old Ebionitic standpoint of Christian Judaism ; or 
we must allow that the power of a truly divine life, the constitu- 
tion of the Spirit as distinguished from the constitution of mere 
nature, is in the Church, not transiently and sporadically as 
under the old Testament, but with real immanent constancy, as 
forming the inmost character of the Church itself. 

The supernatural, as thus made permanent and historical in 
the Church, must, in the nature of the case, correspond with the 
form of the supernatural, as it appeared originally in Christ him- 
self. For it is all one and the same life or constitution. The 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



247 



Church must have a true theanthropic character throughout. 
The union of the divine and human in her constitution, must be 
inward and real, a continuous revelation of God in the flesh, 
exalting this last continuously into the sphere of the Spirit. 

Let all this be properly apprehended and felt, and it cannot 
fail at once to exert a powerful influence over our judgment with 
regard to the Lord's Supper. For it is plain, that this ordinance 
holds a central place in the general system of Christian worship. 
The solemn circumstances under which it was originally insti- 
tuted, the light in which it has always been regarded in the 
Church, and the very instinct, we may say, of our religious na- 
ture itself, which no rationalism can effectually suppress, all con- 
spire to show, that it forms in truth the inmost sanctuary of 
religion, and the most direct and close approach we are ever 
called to make into the divine presence. The mystery of Chris- 
tianity is here concentrated into a single visible transaction, by 
which it is made as it were transparent to the senses, and caused 
to pass before us in immediate living representation. No matter 
how poor may be the general view entertained of the gospel, 
even for the lowest rationalistic spiritualism itself, the Lord's 
Supper, (if it be not discarded entirely, as with the unhappy 
Quaker,) constitutes the most significant and impressive exhibi- 
tion of the grace of the New Testament; the most graphic pic- 
ture, at least, if nothing more, of the salvation which has been 
procured for us by the Saviour's sufferings and death. All that 
is wanted, then, to make it a true sacrament to our view — the 
seal as wellas the sign of the invisible grace it represents — is 
that we should have a true and full persuasion of the supernatu- 
ral character of Christianity itself, as a permanent and not simply 
transient fact in the' history of the world. Low views of the 
sacrament betray invariably a low view of the mystery of the in- 
carnation itself, and a low view of the Church also, as that new 
and higher order of life, in which the power of this mystery con- 
tinues to reveal itself through all ages. Those who entertain 
such views may claim the credit of more than common spiritu- 
ality ; it may be their object professedly to exalt the character of 
Christ, by sinking the thought of all that is outward and mate- 
rial, in order to make more room, as they dream, for his being 
honoured in a higher form. So indeed it has ever been. The 
enemies of the sacraments have always affected to be more spi- 
ritual than others. And who were such sticklers for the highest 
order of spirituality in the early Church, as the Gnostics, who at 
the same time turned the whole fact of the incarnation itself into 
a mere docetic abstraction. Such spiritualism, as it begins in 
the flesh in fact, and never gets beyond it, even in its highest 
flights, is sure to end in it also palpably at the last. On the other 



248 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



hand, let the great fact of the incarnation be apprehended with 
full faith, as a world fact — the centre of all history — the fountain 
of a new creation, which is still present and progressive, not 
fantastically, but in the way of actual human, historical develop- 
ment, in the Church ; let it be felt that the Church is, in very 
deed, the depository and continuation of the Saviour's thean- 
thropic life itself, and as such a truly supernatural constitution, 
in which powers and resources wholly transcending the common 
order of the world are constantly at hand, involving a real inter- 
communion and interpenetration of the human and the divine ; 
let all this, I say, be felt, and it is easy to understand how natu- 
rally and necessarily, at the same time, we must be led to see 
the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, epitome as it is of the mys- 
tery of the Christian salvation itself, in a corresponding light. 

And is not this, it may be asked, the only true and right posi- 
tion for coming to any just judgment in the case? Is not Chris- 
tianity in fact such a supernatural constitution, under a true 
historical form in the world? And may the man be trusted to 
interpret the sense of its mysteries, who does not feel this? Shall 
I go to the spiritualistic Gnostic, or Anabaptist, or Quaker, to 
learn the manner of Christ's presence in the Church ? Shall I 
ask the rationalist Amnion, or Wegscheider, or Paulus, or some 
rationalizing Grotius or Macknight, to explain to me the words 
of institution, in the sacrament of Christ's body and blood? Just 
as reasonably might I study Paul at the feet of Voltaire. The 
very first and most indispensable condition to a safe and sound 
judgment here, is that we should stand in the full sense of what 
is comprehended in the idea of Christianity itself, as a true and 
real revelation of the supernatural in the flesh. This is of more 
account in the case, than all exegetical helps besides. This was 
emphatically the position of the primitive Church ; and it was 
this right standpoint in relation to divine truth no doubt, more 
than any thing else, which served in the case of the first Chris- 
tians, to set both the doctrines and institutions of Christianity 
in proper view, if not at once for the understanding, at least for 
the heart and the inward life. They saw in Christ a new order 
of life, divine and yet most perfectly human at the same time, 
really active in the flesh by the Church, and destined to triumph, 
(in a very little while, as they supposed,) in the form of a true 
earthly millennium, over the entire state of the world as it stood 
before. They felt that in the sphere of this new creation, they 
were mystically joined to the Saviour himself, by the power of 
the Holy Ghost, so as to participate in his very nature and life. 
And how then was it possible, that they should look upon the 
communion of his body and blood in the Lord's Supper as a mere 
sgn or token, in the common acceptation of these terms ? In 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



249 



the nature of the case, they could see in it nothing less than a 
real communication of the Saviour's life itself; and they under- 
stood, of course, and interpreted, the words of institution ac- 
cordingly, as conveying the assurance of this supernatural grace, 
to be perpetuated in the ordinance to the end of time. * 

As Christianity finds a general adumbration in the religion of 
the Old Testament, so its sacraments in particular are specifi- 
cally prefigured in the types of Circumcision and the Passover. 
In the case of the Lord's Supper, a still more remote analogy is 
presented to our view by Paganism itself, in those sacred feasts 
which it has been customary in all ages to hold in connection 
with sacrifices. Under all systems of worship, religion has ever 
been made to centre in the altar and the offering of sacrifice; 
while, by partaking of what was thus offered, the worshipper was 
supposed to come into the nearest communion with the object of 
his worship.* The sacrifice, to serve its purpose in full, must be 
eaten, and thus united in the most intimate and living way with 
the person of him, who sought to propitiate the favour of heaven 
by its means. Whatever of value or merit it comprehended, 
became available through an actual participation of the sacrifice 
itself, in communion with the altar. The same idea, variously 
modified, may be said to run through the entire sacrificial sys- 
tem of the Old Testament. It is most strikingly exhibited, how- 
ever, in the institution of the Passover. 

The Passover was instituted (Ex. xii. 1-27) in connection 
with the memorable deliverance of the children of Israel, on the 
night when the Lord smote the first-born of the land of Egypt ; 
and was ordained to be observed afterwards perpetually in com- 
memoration of this event. The offering in the case was required 
to be a lamb without blemish. The victim must be slain, as an 
offering for sin, and its blood sprinkled on the door posts ; where 
it became an atonement or satisfaction, in view of which the 
plague was not permitted to enter the dwelling thus protected. 
" The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where 
ye are ; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the 
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the 
land of Egypt." But it was not enough that this outward exhi- 
bition of the blood should take place, the ordinance made it 
necessary also that the sacrifice should be eaten. In this case at 
least, more was intended by this than an act of general commu- 
nion with God. It represented the necessity of a true, living 
conjunction with the sacrifice itself. The lamb whose life was 
poured out as an offering for sin, must be itself incorporated as 
it were with the life of the worshipper, to give him a fair and 



* Scheibel. Das Abcndmahl des Herrn, chap. 1. 



250 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



full claim on the value of its vicarious death. It became to him 
an atonement, by entering really into his person. It lay in the 
very nature of the economy itself, that all this should be in a 
merely outward way. The atonement itself was only a type or 
shactow ; and the union with the victim now mentioned was but 
relative and imperfect in like manner. All formed an adum- 
bration simply of the glorious mystery of redemption, as it was 
afterwards to be revealed in Christ. 

For it is allowed on all hands, that the Passover, as it con- 
tinued to be observed afterwards, was more than a mere com- 
memoration of the deliverance in Egypt. This event was itself 
a grand type of the spiritual deliverance, which has since been 
accomplished for the world by the death of Christ ; and the 
paschal celebration accordingly, in calling it continually to mind, 
involved a prophetical reference continually by its means to the 
coming of this great salvation. It involved an acknowledgment 
of spiritual need, with a profession of faith in God's covenanted 
grace, as it was to be revealed in due time for the removal of 
sin; and for the true Israelite, it carried in it a sure pledge at 
the same time that the atoning grace it represented would avail 
to preserve him personally from the power of the destroying 
angel. All this however on the ground of an actual union with 
the sacrifice itself, in the way which has been already noticed. 
In the end, the shadow found its full sense in the presence of 
the substance. The death of Jesus formed the proper end of 
all the sacrifices, and of the paschal offering in particular. " Be- 
hold/ 5 said the Baptist, when he pointed him out to his disciples, 
" the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world f* So 
Paul calls him expressly our Passover, who has been sacrificed 
for us (1 Cor. v. 7). This is still more expressively signified 
however by the Saviour himself, in the institution of the Holy Sup- 
per. By his own appointment, the one sacrament was formally 
substituted for the other. Thus was it distinctly signified, that 
the Passover had looked forward from the first to the sacrifice of 
Christ as the true atonement for sin ; and that it ceased accord- 
ingly to have any meaning, when this sacrifice was offered. The 
sacrament of the Passover was at once abolished and fulfilled, in 
the sacrament of Christ's body and blood. 

The two institutions then are to be considered of parallel 
character, and as having in some sense the same significance 
and force. Both look directly to the broken body and shed 
blood of the Redeemer, as the great and only true propitiation 
for the sins of the world. Their relation to each other however, 
is like that of the two Testaments in general. The one is rela- 
tively only, what the other is absolutely. The sacraments of the 
Old Testament are no proper measure, by which to graduate 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



251 



directly the force that belongs to the sacraments of the New. 
We have seen already, that the Old Testament made nothing 
perfect. Its ordinances and ministrations were all more or less 
shadowy and incomplete. The substance of their sense is re- 
vealed only in Christ. To make Baptism no more than Circum- 
cision or the Lord's Supper no more than the Passover, is to 
wrong the new dispensation as really, as we should do by attri- 
buting to the levitical priesthood what is to be found only in 
him who is a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek. The 
Passover was at best but an unreal adumbration of the grace that 
is exhibited to us in the Lord's Supper. It was a picture or 
sign only of what it was intended to represent; not a sacrament 
at all indeed, in the full New Testament sense, but a sacrament 
simply in prefiguration and type. Still, as such a type, it is 
well adapted to illustrate the true force of the higher institution, 
in which ultimately it came to its end. 

The Lord's Supper was instituted under circumstances, which 
show clearly that it was intended to take up into itself, (as the 
comprehension of the whole idea of Christianity,) the full typical 
import of the Old Testament, which might be said to find its 
central representation in the Passover. Through this sacrament 
in particular all looked forward to the great sacrifice of Calvary, 
as the end in which its shadows were to become real. That 
sacrifice was now ready to be offered. On the night in which he 
was betrayed — at the close of the paschal feast — with his sufferings 
in full view, and the full consciousness at the same time of the 
relation in which he stood to the old dispensation now ready to 
pass away in his person — our Saviour solemnly took bread, 
blessed and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, 
eat ; this is my body, which is given for you : — and then again 
the cup, saying, This cup is the new testainent in my blood which 
is shed for you, drink ye all of it, (Matt. xxvi. 26-29, Luke xxii. 
15-20). Thus was instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per, in the room of the Jewish Passover, for the use of the 
Church in all following time. Now it is only necessary to have 
some actual sense of the immeasurable solemnity of the occa- 
sion itself, to feel how perfectly frigid and rationalistic every 
view must be that can find nothing more in the words of insti- 
tution, than that this ceremony was to be a simple conventional 
memorial to all ages of the Redeemer's sufferings and death. 
We may not indeed take the words in their strictly literal sense, 
as is done by the Church of Rome ; but we have just as little 
right on the other hand, to resolve them into the merest com- 
mon-place in the way of pretended figure. The occasion is too 
solemn, the phraseology too strikingly pregnant, for that. Let 
due regard be had to all the circumstances of the transaction, 



252 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



and it will be impossible to avoid the feeling that it requires to 
be understood in a higher sense.* 

What the Passover signified prophetically, and in the way of 
shadow, is here exhibited under the character of a real and ac- 
tually present salvation. For the paschal lamb, Christ solemnly 
substitutes himself. The Old Testament sacrament is made to 
give way to the power and glory of the actual grace, it was em- 
ployed to foreshadow. Participation in the promise, is to be- 
come now particpation in the fact itself. " This is the Lord's 
Passover," said Moses to the Jews at the time of its institution ; 
and so as it was observed, from year to year in subsequent time, 
this word was still repeated, "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's 
Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in 
Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses!" 
(Ex. xii. 11, 27). This did not mean of course, that the paschal 
elements were themselves this ancient deliverance. But it did 
mean, that they were something more than a mere Fourth of 
July commemoration in the case. They were, in pledge and 
seal, the very covenant itself, such as it was, which that occasion 
served to ratify, as the shadow of blessings to come. In contrast 

* To estimate at all the force of our Saviour's words, in the case of this 
solemn institution, it is above all things necessary, of course, that we should 
have present to our minds, in a lively way, the circumstances under which all 
took place. That most wretched rationalist, Paulus of Heidelberg, resolves 
the whole transaction into the poorest common-place ; by supposing that 
Jesus, his thoughts full of the violence he expected to suffer shortly after, 
whilst handing round to his disciples the broken bread, took occasion to say, 
mournfully, of the suggestive symbol, It is my body. The affecting words 
made an indelible impression on the minds of all present; and so it came to 
pass " very psychologically," we are told, that as long as they lived, when 
they afterwards broke bread together, the simple association served power- 
fully to recall him to their thoughts, &c. Comm. in Matt, xxvi. 26. And yet 
Paulus affects to be graphic, too, in painting the scene as it was, in order to 
show us how natural the symbolical and hyperbolical must be considered in 
the case ! At such exegesis, we may well shudder. But may we not fear that 
there is oftentimes an approximation towards the same rationalistic stand- 
point, where the ordinance is spoken of in much more respectful terms, while 
at the same time its whole significance is tried by the measure of common or 
merely human relations ? No occasion could well be more solemn, than that 
which gave birth to the holy institution. Let the circumstances be felt. Let 
the truths of overwhelming interest, presented by our Lord in his last dis- 
course with his disciples, be present to the soul. Let the calm, divine self- 
possession of the Son of Man, the past and the future all in clear vision 
before him, be distinctly apprehended. Xet it be felt, that a new creation 
was in fact comprehended in his person ; and that the shadows of all past 
time were now to be made actual in the reality they foretokened. Let it be 
remembered that the idea of the atonement, the great central truth of Chris- 
tianity, had never yet been distinctly enunciated by Christ himself; but was 
here first proclaimed, just before the sacrifice was to take place, under a form 
intended to lodge it in the heart of the Christian worship to the end of time. 
Let all this be considered and felt, and then how poor and jejune does the 
interpretation become, which can find nothing beyond a cold lo^fcal figure in 
the actions and words of Christ, as presented to us in this perpetual sacra- 
ment of his body and blood ! 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



253 



with all this, and in fulfilment of its true meaning at the same 
time, Christ, with direct reference to his own expiatory death 
now immediately at hand, makes himself over to his disciples in 
the sacrament of the Supper. " This is my body, broken for 
you— this cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for many, 
for the remission of sins." Did he mean that the elements 
themselves were his body and his blood, literally taken ? Of 
course not. Did he mean then only, that they were a figure of 
a certain truth, comprehendedi n his sufferings and death, which 
the mind was to be assisted in contemplating and embracing in 
this way? More, undoubtedly, than this. Under the elements 
here exhibited, was offered truly and really the substance itself 
of which the Passover was only a type — that is, the new covenant 
in Christ's death, as that in which was verified and fulfilled all 
that lay included as promise merely in the old. This is the 
Lord's Passover in its last and most true sense — not the sacrifice 
of a typical lamb simply, but my body, my blood — not the pledge 
and seal of blessings to come, but the new covenant itself, the 
pledge and seal of blessings already come, and now compre- 
hended in this sacramental transaction, as ordained for the use 
of the Church, to the end of time. All of course however in the 
way of a living connection with the sacrifice itself. The bread 
and wine are not Christ's flesh, and blood as such ; they are 
only, (but this in a real objective way), the new covenant in his 
death, made actual by pledge and seal under this outward form ; 
still a participation in the covenant, requires and implies, in the 
nature of the case, a participation in the very life, by which 
alone the expiatory value of the covenant can have any reality or 
force. The paschal lamb must be eaten, physically incorporated 
with the life of the worshipper, to give him part in the covenant 
of which it was the seal. A fleshly shadow of the true life 
union, on the ground of which, and by the power of which alone, 
we can ever have part in the blessings of the new covenant in 
Christ's blood. Communion with the covenant, involves of 
necessity communion with the sacrifice. All fleshly conceptions 
are to be of course excluded. The case calls for something 
higher than popish transubstantiation, or the kindred doctrine of 
the old Lutheran Church. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; 
the flesh profiteth nothing." But the idea of a true participation 
in Christ's life, as the necessary condition of an interest in his 
sufferings and death, runs clearly through the whole transaction. 
The bread is given to be eaten; the wine must be drunk. To 
quote the words of another: " The breaking of the bread serves 
to bring into view Christ's death ; the eating of the broken bread 
is a symbol that this death is appropriated in the way of a living 
union with the Saviour himself. As however Christ, in giving 

22 



254 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 



the bread to eat and the wine to drink, declares them to be the 
pledge of the new covenant itself in his blood, it follows that the 
bread and wine are not simply symbols, but that they serve to 
place him who eats and drinks, in real communion with the 
atonement through his death. And since such communion with 
Christ's death can have no place without a life-communion (Le- 
bensgemeinschaft) with Christ himself, or since in other words 
the new covenant holds in the form of a real inward and living 
fellowship only, it follows again that the Lord's Supper involves 
for the worthy participant a true, personal, central communica- 
tion and union with Christ's actual life." We have in it the 
same fact that is presented to us in those memorable words 
spoken at Capernaum, to which we have already attended, and 
which connect themselves irresistibly w T ith the institution of the 
wonderful ordinance: Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you! 

"The cup of blessing which we bless," says the apostle, "is 
it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which 
we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ," (1 
Cor. x. 16). He does not mean to explain the nature of the 
Lord's Supper, in these words, but makes his appeal in the case 
simply to the view generally entertained of the institution among 
Christians at the time. The representation is general, and 
gives no new light on the mode of our communication with the 
body and blood of Christ in the sacrament. But this much it 
does most certainly imply, that the communion is something 
more than figurative or moral. It is the communion of Christ's 
body and blood — a real participation in his true human life, as 
the one only and all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. 
" Figurative language, 1 confess," says Calvin, "only let not the 
truth of the figure be put out of the way — that is, let the thing 
itself also be present, to be apprehended by the soul as really as 
the outward elements are by the mouth." 

The passage, Eph. v. 22 — 32, has been already noticed, in 
connection with the general subject of the mystical union. It 
is proper to add here, however, that as it includes a distinct 
reference to the sacrament of Baptism, (v. 26, 27), as it is 
allowed also by the best commentators to regard in the close 
(v. 30 — 32) not merely the general communion of Christ with 
believers, but particularly at the same time his special com- 
munion with them in the sacrament of the Holy Supper. Such 
is the view of Theodoret, Calvin, Beza, Calovius, Grotius, fully 
approved and endorsed in our own time by such men as Holz- 
hausen, Harless, and Olshausen. Calvin remarks; "Paul de- 



* Ebrard. Das Dogma von heil. Abendmahl. voJ. i., p. 1 19. 



BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 



255 



scribes here that union we have with Christ, of which the sym- 
bol and pledge is given us in the Holy Supper. Some indeed 
complain that the application of the passage to the Supper 
is forced, since there is no mention here of the Supper, but 
only of marriage; in this however they are altogether mistaken. 
For whereas they allow only a commemoration of Christ's death 
in the Supper, and will not admit an actual communication, 
such as we assert from his own words, we urge against them 
this testimony : Paul declares that we are members of Christ's 
body, of his flesh and of his bones. Need we wonder then that 
he gives us his body to partake of in the Supper, that it may be 
to us the aliment of eternal life? Thus we show, that we teach 
no other representation in the Supper, than that whose truth and 
power are proclaimed by Paul." Harless, one of the coolest 
and most circumspect of commentators, holds the reference to 
the Lord's supper, in the passage to be beyond doubt; not so 
much on the ground of any particular expressions separately 
taken, as in view of the concinnity which is thus imparted to 
the whole thought from v. 23 to 32, in full harmony at the same 
time with the proper interpretation of the passage in its details. 
The general thought is the close, constant communion in which 
Christ, as the Redeemer, stands with his Church. Reference is 
made first to Baptism, under this view, as the pledge and seal of 
the intimate relation. From this there is then an advance, 
(for that is evidently the character of the representation), to the 
other sacrament, in which the same mystery is still more strik- 
ingly exhibited and confirmed. " If we have come to under- 
stand the nature of the Lord's Supper," says Harless, " as un- 
folded in the Scriptures and held by the Protestant Church, we 
shall be forced to allow that the image itself, which is employed 
by the apostles, carries us irresistibly to this institution as its 
proper object." 

The whole subject the apostle pronounces, in this connection, 
" a great mystery." This itself is sufficient to overthrow the 
rationalistic view, by which it is attempted to resolve the whole 
representation into a common figure, denoting nothing more 
than the close correspondence in which Christ stands with the 
souls of his people. If ever there was a clear case in exege- 
ries, we might seem to have it here. The union of the be- 
liever with Christ, by which the two are said to be constituted 
one flesh, (as they are elsewhere denominated one Spirit), and 
which the apostle in this view, with such deliberate reflection — 
pausing as it were to weigh the import of all he had said — pro- 
claims a great mystery ; this union, I say, must be real in the 
form in which it is here presented, involving an actual commu- 
nity of life with the glorified Son of Man in his whole person. 



256 



THE MYSTICAL PRESENCE. 




" They are preposterous," says Calvin, " who allow in this mat- 
ter nothing more, than they have been able to reach with the 
measure of their understanding. When they deny that the 
flesh and blood of Christ are exhibited to us in the Holy Sup- 
per, Define the mode, they say, or you will not convince us. But 
as for myself, I am filled with amazement at the greatness of the 
mystery. Nor am I ashamed, with Paul, to confess in admira- 
tion my own ignorance. For how much better is that, than to 
extenuate with my carnal sense what the apostle pronounces a 
high mystery !" 






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